MHMHHPH1 

E 
415 


•NRLF 


\ 


Horace  Greeley  decently  Dissected, 


IN       A 


LETTER  ON  HORACE  GREELEY, 


ADDRESSED      BY 


A      OAKEY-HALL 


TO 


JOSEPH    HOXIE,    Esq., 


REPUBLISHED  (WITH  AN  ALPHABET  OF  NOTES)  BY  POPULAR  REQUEST. 


"SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

"  WE  HAVE  REPEATEDLY  SAID,  AND  WF  ONCE  MORE  INSIST,  THAT  THE  GREAT  PRINCIPLE  EMBODIED 
BY  JEFFERSON  iv  THK  DECLARATION  OF  AMERICAN  INDEPENDENCE,  THAT  GOVKI-XJ,  KXTS  DERIVE  THEIR  JUST 

POWER  FROM  THE  CONSENT   OF  THE   GOVERNED,  IS  SOUND  AND  JI'ST  :   AND  THAT,  IF   THE  SLAVE  STATES, 

THE  COTTON  STATES.  OR  THE  GULF  STATES  ONLY,  CHOOSE  TO  FORM  AN  INDEPENDENT 
NATION.  THEY  HAVE  A  (LEAR  MORAL  RIGHT  TO  DO  SO.     WE  HAVE  NEVER  S.MD,  NOR  INTI 
MATED,  THAT  THIS   IS  A  RIGHT  TO   BE  CLAIMED   TV  A  FREAK   OR  A  PET,   AND   EXERCISED   WITH    THK 

LKVITY  OF  A  BEAU  CHOOSING  HIS  PARTNER  FOR  A  DANCE.     WE  DO  NOT  BELIEVE — WE  HAVE  NEVER 

MAINTAINED — THAT  A  STATE  MIGHT  BREAK  OUT  OF  THE  UNION  LIKE  A  BULL  FROM  A  PASTURE — 

THAT  ONE  STATE,  OR  TEN  STATES,  MIGHT  TAKE  THEMSELVES  OFF  IN  A  HUFF — MUCH  LESS 

MAKE  A  FEINT  OF  GOING,  IN  ORDER  TO  I!E  BRIBED  TO  STAY  ;  BUT  WE  HAVE  SAID,  AND  STILL 

MAINTAIN,  THAT,  PROVIDED  THE  COTTON  STATES  HAVE  FULLY  AND  DKF1MTIVKLY  MADE 

UP  THEIR    MINDS    TO    GO    BY    THEMSELVES,    THERE    IS    NO    NEED    OF    FR.HTING 

ABOUT  IT  ;  FOR  THEY  HAVE  ONLY  TO  EXERCISE  REASONABLE  PATIENCE,  AND  THEY 

•  WILL  BE   LET    OFF    IN  PEACE  AND    GOOD    WILL.      WHENEVER    IT    SHALL    BE 

CLEAR  THAT  THE  GREAT  BODY  OF  THE  SOUTHERN  PEOPLE  HAVE 
BECOME    CONCLUSIVELY    ALIENATED    FROM    THE    UNION,  AND 
ANXIOUS  TO  ESCAPE  FROM  IT,  WE  WILL  DO 'OUR  BEST  TO  FOR 
WARD  THEIR  VIEWS."— HORACE  GREELEY,  Tribune,  Feb.  23, 1861. 


NEW     YORK: 

ROSS  &  TOUSEY,  No.  121  NASSAU  STREET, 

GENERAL  AGENTS  FOR  PUBLISHERS,  NEWSDEALERS,  AND  BOOKSELLERS. 

1862. 


Wyiikoop,  Halleubeck  &  Thomas,  Printers,  113  Fultoii  Street,  N.  Y. 


Horace  Greeley  decently  Dissected, 


IN       A 


LETTER  ON  HORACE  GREELEY, 


ADDRESSED      BY 


A      OAKEY    HALL 


«\ 


TO 


JOSEPH    HOXIE,    Esq., 


BEPUBIISHED  (WITH  AN  ALPHABET  OF  NOTES)  BY  POPULAR  REQUEST. 


"SELF-GOVERNMENT. 

"  WE  HAVE  REPEATEDLY  SAID,  AND  WE  ONCE  MORE  INSIST,  THAT  THE  GREAT  PRINCIPLE  EMBODIED 
BY  JEFFERSON  IN  THE  DECLARATION  OF  AMERICAN  INDEPENDENCE,  THAT  GOVERNMKNTS  DERIVE  THEIR  JUST 
POWER  FROM  THE  CONSENT  OF  THE  GOVERNED,  IS  SOUND  AND  JUST  ;  AND  THAT,  IF  THE  SLAVE  STATES, 
THE  COTTON  STATES,  OR  THE  GULF  STATES  ONLY,  CHOOSE  TO  FORM  AN  INDEPENDENT 
NATION.  THEY  HAVE  A  CLEAR  MORAL  RIGHT  TO  DO  SO.     WE  HAVE  NEVER  SAID,  NOR  INTI 
MATED,   THAT  THIS   IS  A   RIGHT  TO  BE  CLAIMED   IN   A  FREAK   OR  A  PET,   AND  EXERCISED   WITH    THE 

LEVITY  OF  A  BEAU  CHOOSING  HIS  PARTNER  FOR  A  DANCE.     WE  DO  NOT  liELIEVE — WE  HAVE  NEVER 

MAINTAINED — THAT  A  STATE  MIGHT  BREAK  OUT  OF  THE  UNION  LIKE  A  BULL  FROM  A  PASTURE — 

THAT  ONE  STATE,  OR  TEN  STATES,  MIGHT  TAKE  THEMSELVES  OFF  IN  A  HUFF — MUCH  LESS 

MAKE  A  FEINT  OF  GOING,  IN  ORDER  TO  KE  BRIBED  TO  STAY  ;  BUT  WE  HAVE  SAID,  AND  STILL 

MAINTAIN,  THAT,  PROVIDED  THE  COTTON  STATES  HAVE  FULLY  AND  DEFINITIVELY  MADE 

Ul>  THEIR    MINDS    TO    GO    BY    THEMSELVES,    THERE    IS    NO    NEED    OF    FIGHTING 

ABOUT  IT  ;  FOR  THEY  HAVE  ONLY  TO  EXERCISE  REASONABLE  PATIENCE,  AND  THEY 

WILL   BE   LET    OFF    IN  PEACE  AND    GOOD    WILL.      WHENEVER    IT    SHALL    BE 

CLEAR  THAT  THE  GREAT  BODY  OF  THE  SOUTHERN  PEOPLE  HAVE 
BECOME    CONCLUSIVELY    ALIENATED    FROM    THE    UNION,   AND 
ANXIOUS  TO  ESCAPE  FROM  IT,  WE  WILL  DO  OUR  BEST  TO  FOR 
WARD  THEIR  VIEWS.7'—  HORACE  GREELEY,  Tribune,  Feb.  23,1861. 


NEW      Y  0  R  K  : 

ROSS  &  TOUSEY,  No.  121  NASSAU  STREET, 

GENERAL  AGENTS  FOR  PUBLISHERS,  NEWSDEALERS,  AND  BOOKSELLERS. 

1862. 


.  V  •     «* 

-,->>»«•      •    • 

•  ««c  .«       *•»•.*•       • 

"    '      *  "     •  •••  i  •*•••", 


WYNKOOP,  HALLENBECK  &  THOMAS,  PRINTKKS, 
No.  113  FULTON  STREET,  NEW  YORK. 


'    I        r- 


,      r 

r      e 


INDEX  TO  THE  ALPHABET  OF  NOTES. 


PAGE 

NOTE  a.     THE  ' '  CASUS  BELLI  " 7 

b.      THE  DIFFERENCE   BETWEEN    "MY   BULL  AND   YOUR  OX  "            .            .            .  7 

C.       HOW  HORACE  GREELEY   DEMOLISHES  POLITICAL   FOES       ....  8 

d.     HORACE  GREELEY' s  FAMOUS  CONFESSION  TO  "PATER"  SEWARD      .         .  9 

C.     AN  APPLICATION  FROM  PECKSNIFF        .......  14 

/.     "SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS"  DEFINED 14 

g.  "THE  ANCIENT  AND  MODERN  NARCISSUS 15 

h.      THE   FIELD  AGAINST  THE   FAVORITE        .......  17 

i.      A   QUOTATION   WHICH  MUST   BE   READ  TO   BE   APPRECIATED       .  *         .            .  17 

j.      THE   HON.    JOHN   B.    HASKIN   AND   HORACE   GREELEY         ....  17 

k.      CHIEF  JUSTICE  TANEY   AND   HORACE  GREELEY 18 

1.       EDWIN   FORREST  AND   HORACE   GREELEY 18 

m.      JUDGE   DALY   AND   HORACE   GREELEY      .......  18 

n.      HARPER   BROTHERS   AND   HORACE   GREELEY 20 

0.      EDWARD   EVERETT  AND   HORACE   GREELEY 20 

RETRACTIONS  AND   MAGNANIMITY  VS.    HORACE  GREELEY                ...  21 

p.  -(  ARCHBISHOP  HUGHES  AND   HORACE   GREELEY 21 

REV.    WM.    ADAMS,    D.  D.,    AND   HORACE  GREELEY 21 

HORACE   GREELEY   IN   THE  LOBBY               .            .            .            .            .            .            .  23 

HORACE  GRRELEY  AND  THE  MONEY  QUESTION            .....  25 

HORACE  GREELEY  AND  THE  MOTIVES  OF  MONEYED  MEN        ....  25 

S.       FAC-SIMILE   OF  THE  NATION'S   WAR-CRY 26 

t.       HORACE    GREELEY   not  THE  TRIBUNE        .......  27 

u.     HORACE  GREELEY' s  EPITAPH,  WRITTEN  BY  HIMSELF       .  27 

V.      A  BLASPHEMOUS  EDITORIAL,  ESPECIALLY   COMMENDED   TO  CLERICAL  ADMIRERS  28 

IV.      HORACE   GREELEY   HELD   ACCOUNTABLE   FOR   HIS   SHARE   OF  THE   WAR          .  29 

X.       HALF   A   DOZEN   TREASONABLE   EDITORIALS       .            .            .            .            .            .  32 

y.       WHAT   IS   A   COMMON-LAW   NUISANCE        .......  37 

Z.      THE   EXTRACTS   FROM  THE   NEWSPAPER   FILES   VINDICATED          ...  37 


M1498H 


PREFATORY 


*•* 


THE  letter  which  forms  the  basis  of  this  brochure  was  pub 
lished  in  the  Leader  of  December  14,  1860  ;  and  subsequently 
was  copied  by  the  Herald,  January  4,  1861,  accompanied  with 
an  illustrative,  piquant,  and  characteristic  editorial. 

The  writer  has  been  warned  by  many  of  his  own  friends, 
and  by  some  of  Horace  Greeley's  admirers,  against  the  folly  of 
provoking  so  powerful  a  newspaper  editor.  To  the  former,  the 
writer  has  replied  that  there  is  a  scriptural  history  about  a 
shepherd  boy,  and  a  taunting,  bragging,  powerful  giant ;  and 
that  even  pebbles,  if  well  chosen,  and  if  well  aimed,  can  do 
execution  against  a  Goliah.  To  the  latter  class,  the  \vriter  has 
answered,  that  although  sensible,  that  like  not  a  few  other 
political,  legal,  and  literary  hacks,  the  writer  resides  in  a  three- 
story  glass  house  ;  yet  the  question  is  not  and  cannot  become 
one  concerning  the  obscure  individual  and  his  demerits,  but 
remains  about  the  Editor  and  public  man,  who,  seeking  to  lead 
public  sentiment,  is  amenable  to  its  judgment.  It  is  a  naked 
question  of  exposing  to  history  and  posterity,  for  the  good  of 
real  morality,  a  crying  public  abuse  which  existed  in  the  past. 
This  obscure  brochure  may  be  read  and  forgotten  this  year ;  but 
placed,  as  it  will  be,  in  every  public  library  in  the  land,  will,  in 
many  years  to  come,  serve  the  same  universal  good  which  the 
once  obscure  and  trembling  letter- writers  of  the  Cromwellian  or 


VI.  PREFACE. 

Dantonian  revolutions  have  served,  in  quietly  noting  for  pos 
terity  the  hypocrisies,  vanities,  and  frivolities  of  some  demi-god 
of  a  fanatical  mob  ;  and  in  demonstrating  that  the  patriotism  of 
this  demi-god  was  only  a  thin  cloak  that  time  rotted  away. 

The  succeeding  pages  are  believed  to  be  entirely  free  from 
even  a  remote  reference  to  .any  personal  controversy  between 
writer  and  subject.  They  are  intended  to  be  relieved  from 
undignified  allusions. 

The  pebbles  may  not  be  well  chosen,  and  may  not  be  well 
aimed.  But  they  take  their  slender  chances  against  the  edito 
rial  giant,  with  his  peculiar  followers,  of  whom  may  be  said 
(as  was  sung  of  those  of  Alp,  the  renegade,  in  Byron's  Siege 
of  Corinth)  : 

"  They  crouched  to  him,  for  he  had  skill 
To  warp  and  wield  the  public  will." 


>       J 

J  •>•>•* 

->  J        J  J    J 


LETTER,  WITH  NOTES. 


MY  DEAR  HOXIE  : — xYmong  the  editorials  in  The  Tribune  of  the 
day  succeeding-  the  Mayoralty  election,  were  conspicuously  printed 
the  words  "  POOR  JOE  !"  (a) 

They  undoubtedly  '  made  the  unskillful  laugh  ;'  but  they  also 
'made  the  judicious  grieve  ;'  and  (as  Hamlet  continues)  'the  cen 
sure  of  the  which  one  must  in  your  allowance  outweigh  a  whole 
theatre  of  others.' 

You  had  exercised  your  right  of  suffrage  as  a  private  citizen, 
by  voting  for  a  much  respected  and  personal  friend.  Upon  several 
days  previously,  you  had,  as  a  private  citizen,  also  exercised  your 
choice  of  electioneering.  It  happening  that  the  vote  and  elec 
tioneering  were  not  in  accordance  with  the  views  of  Horace  Greeley, 
and  your  candidate  being  defeated,  you  were  selected  by  him,  from 
among  the  seventy-five  thousand  electors,  to  be  (according  to  a  phrase 
in  Alexander  Hamilton's  celebrated  libel  definition)  'held  up  to  pub 
lic  ridicule.'  Just  as  effectually  so  by  the  intention  of  those  two 
words,  as  if  a  column  had  been  used  by  Horace  Greeley's  pen,  which 
seems  to  boast  to  itself  an  editorial  reign  of  terror  over  judges, 
prosecutors  and  jurymen  ;  and  therefore  laughs  to  scorn  the  conse 
quences  of  libel  at  which,  under  similar  circumstances,  a  poor  coun 
try  editor  might  justly  tremble,  (b) 

NOTE  (a).  These  words  were  inserted  among  the  editorial  rejoicings  over  the 
election  of  the  Tribune  candidate.  They  were  unattended  by  any  other  Sentence, 
and  formed  a  single  paragraph.  Consequently  the  one  upon  which  a  reader's  eye 
most  readily  centred  in  opening  the  paper. 

NOTE  (b).  Mr.  Joseph  Hoxie  had  known  C.  Godfrey  Gunther,  Esq.  [the  candidate 
of  one  of  the  Union,  as  well  as  Tammany  and  German  League,  candidates  for 
Mayor],  from  the  latter's  boyhood.  Horace  Greeley  sought  to  force  him  in  Decem 
ber  into  a  party  support ;  although  in  November  Horace  Greeley  had  openly  bolted 
tw^  party  candidates.  Mr.  Hoxie  doubtless  remembered  the  following  editorial  of 
Horace  Greeley.  [The  animus  of  1861  and  of  1858  are  particularly  worthy  of  juxta- 


v         V  I       «•  C 


8 

When  the  paper  containing  the  words  was  shown  to  me,  I  was 
instantly  reminded  of  a  conversation  between  us  during  our  recent 
joint  canvass.  You  jokingly  alluded  to  Horace  Greeley's  attacks 
upon  several  candidates-  (who  had  at  various  times  thwarted  Horace 
Greeley  's  ambitions  or  political  interests).  I  think  my  words  were  : 
"  Your  time  will  also  come,  Hoxie,  for  you  are  not  forgiven  the 
small  amount  of  time  and  money  you  expended  last  February,  at 
Albany,  in  doing  for  Horace  Greeley  as  a  candidate  for  U.  S. 
Senator,  (c)  that  which  was  only  criminal  when  against  him  or  his 

position  .    The  New  York  public  can  be  as  independent  as  they  please  when  Horace 
Greeley  has  no  pet  candidate  ;  but  when  he  has,  then  cracks  his  idiosyncratic  whip  :] 

t(  One  thing  has  been  settled  by  the  experience  of  the  last  twenty  years,  and  that 
is  the  moral  impossibility  of  good  Municipal  rule  under  the  sway  of  any  political 
party.  Either  the  citizens  who  mainly  pay  the  taxes  must  come  together  and  re 
solve  to  unite,  without  distinction  of  party,  in  the  support  of  honest,  capable  men 
for  responsible  places  in  the  municipality,  or  they  must  submit  to  be  ruled  by 
peculators  and  sharpers  leagued  with  miscreants  and  ruffians.  There  is  just  this 
choice  open  to  them.  True,  we  might  urge  that  none  of  the  great  cities,  Chicago 
alone  excepted,  have  yet  been  ruled  by  the  Kepublicans  as  a  party  ;  and  that  they 
ought  to  be  tried  before  party  municipal  government  is  decisively^pronounced  a  fail 
ure  ;  but  it  is  wiser  to  rest  on  the  abundant  experience  afforded  by  the  failures  of  all 
other  parties.  Years  ago,  we  were  satisfied  that  no  party  which  had  a  President  to 
support  or  to  elect  could  ever  govern  a  great  city  wisely,  efficiently,  or  economi 
cally.  We  have  for  the  last,  four  or  five  years  supported  and  opposed  candidates  for  Municipal 
stations  regardless  of  their  politics,  AND  MEAN  TO  DO  so  EVERMORE. 

"Our  City  now  holds  her  Municipal  separate  from  our  State  and  National  elec 
tions  ;  so  do  all,  or  nearly  all,  other  great  cities.  Let  the  divorce  of  Municipal  affairs 
from  Politics  be  made  absolute  and  universal,  and  we  may  hope  henceforth  to  avoid  the 
reign  of  Vigilance  Committees  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  Ballot-box  Stuffers  on  the 
other." 

This  editorial  from  the  Tribune  of  June  8,  1858,  was  a  complete  justification  of  the 
course  of  Mr.  Hoxie  (a  Republican),  supporting  Mr.  Gunther  (a  Democrat),  and  a 
valued  friend. 


NOTE  (c).  It  is  interesting  to  the  student  of  human  motive  to  study  Horace  Gree 
ley 's  files  from  February,  1861— the  date  of  the  New  York  Senatorial  election,  when 
Horace  Greeley  was  defeated — in  order  to  see  how  those  who  then  voted,  or  those  who 
lobbied  against  his  aspirations  have  been  guillotined  in  his  Spruce  street  sanctum. 
Comptroller  Haws  (one  of  the  most  scrupulously  industrious,  honest,  and  high-mind 
ed  men  of  the  land)  was  always  spoken  of  by  Horace  Greeley  as  he  deserved,  down 
to  the  time  of  the  fatal  ( ? )  visit  to  Albany,  against  the  Senatorial  aspirant.  The 


9 

favorite  men — '  lobbying1.'  You  dissented,  and  thought  Horace 
Greeley  would  never  tread  upon  the  friendships  and  other  favors  of 
twenty  years,  to  indulge  in  a  libel  upon  you. 

reader  will  find  among  Horace  Greeley 's  files,  since  that  time,  many  references  to 
a  Haws-ian  fall  from  grace,  that,  however,  no  one  else  but  Horace  Greeley  has 
noticed.  Mr.  Washington  Smith,  ex-Governor  of  the  Alms-House,  £c.,  &c.,  just 
before  the  Senatorial  election,  gave  a  supper  party  (being  one  of  the  Presidential 
electors),  at  which  was  present  William  M.  Evarts,  Esq. — the  Senatorial  candi 
date  who  withdrew  in  favor  of  Ira  Harris  (the  balance-of -power  candidate),  and 
elected  him — and  at  which  supper  was  not  present  Horace  Greeley.  Mr.  Evarts 
made  a  pleasant  speech,  and  was  toasted  by  Washington  Smith  as  the  next  U.  S. 
Senator.  Last  November,  Washington  Smith  was  nominated  regularly  by  the 
Republican  party  for  the  State  Senate.  But  Horace  Greeley,  '  didn't  see  it.'  A  Union 
Republican  was  started  by  Horace  Greeley,  and  Washington  Smith  was  not  elected. 
In  the  summer  of  1861,  William  M.  Evarts,  Esq.,  delivered  an  agricultural  address 
in  the  interior  of  New  York  State.  All  other  editors  praised  it,  but  the  correspondent 
of  Horace  Greeley  averred  that  it  was  too  long,  and  was  not  in  any  sense  an  agri 
cultural  address  !  Doubtless  other  coincidences  will  occur  to  readers,  and  which 
to  mention  space  forbids. 

NOTE  (d).  This  remarkable  epistle  is  as  follows — the  italics  being  of  the  writer  : 

NEW  YORK,  Saturday  eve.,  Nov.  11,  1854. 

Gov.  SEWARD  :  The  Election  is  over,  and  its  results  sufficiently  ascertained.  It 
seems  to  me  a  fitting  time  to  announce  to  you  the  dissolution  of  the  political  firm 
of  SEWARD,  WEED  and  GREELEY,  by  the  withdrawal  of  the  junior  partner — said  with 
drawal  to  take  effect  on  the  morning  after  the  first  Tuesday  in  February  next. 
And,  as  it  may  seem  a  great  presumption  in  me  to  assume  that  any  such  firm  exists, 
especially  since  the  public  was  advised,  rather  more  than  a  year  ago,  by  an  Edi 
torial  rescript  in  the  Evening  Journal,  formally  reading  me  out  of  the  Whig  party, 
that  I  was  esteemed  no  longer  either  useful  or  ornamental  in  the  concern,  you  will, 
I  am  sure,  indulge  me  in  some  reminiscences  which  seem  to  befit  the  occasion. 

I  was  a  poor  young  printer,  and  editor  of  a  Literary  Journal — a  very  active  AND 
BITTER  Whig  in  a  small  way,  but  not  seeking  to  be  known  out  of  my  own  Ward 
Committee — when,  after  the  great  political  revulsion  of  1837,  I  was  one  day  called 
to  the  City  Hotel,  where  two  strangers  introduced  themselves  as  TIIURLOW  WEED  and 
LEWIS  BENEDICT,  of  Albany.  They  told  me  that  a  cheap  Campaign  Paper  of  a  pe 
culiar  stamp  at  Albany  had  been  resolved  on,  and  that  I  had  been  selected  to  edit 
it.  The  announcement  might  well  be  deemed  flattering  by  one  who  had  never 
even  sought  the  notice  of  the  great,  and  who  was  not  known  as  a  partisan  writer, 
and  I  EAGERLY  embraced  their  proposals.  They  asked  me  to  fix  my  salary  for  the 
year  ;  I  named  $1,000,  which  they  agreed  to  ;  and  I  did  the  work  required  to  the 
best  of  my  ability.  It  was  work  that  made  no  figure  and  created  no  sensation  ; 
but  I  loved  it  and  did  it  well.  When  it  was  done,  you  were  Governor,  dispensing 


10 

But  the  younger  prophet,  my  dear  Hoxie,  proves  most  correct. 
Those  friendships  were  wiped  from  Horace  Greeley's  newspaper 
slate  as  remorselessly  as  a  Thug  throttles  his  traveling  companion. 

(Let  me  chronicle  an  honorable  difference.  A  playful  allusion 
to  your  candidate's  defeat  appeared  in  The  Evening  Post  of  the  same 

offices  worth  $3,000  to  $20,000  per  year  to  your  friends  and  compatriots,  AND  I  re 
turned  to  my  garret  and  my  crust,  and  my  desperate  battle  with  pecuniary  obliga 
tions  heaped  upon  me  by  bad  partners  in  business  and  the  disastrous  events  of 
1837.  I  believe  it  did  not  then  occur  to  me  that  some  of  these  abundant  places  might  have  been 
offered  to  me  without  injustice;  I  now  think  it  should  have  occurred  to  you.  If  it  did 
occur  to  me,  I  was  not  the  man  to  ask  you  for  it ;  I  think  that  should  not  have 
been  necessary.  I  only  remember  that  no  friend  at  Albany  inquired  as  to  my 
pecuniary  circumstances  ;  that  your  friend  (but  not  mine),  EGBERT  C.  WETMORE,  was 
one  of  the  chief  dispensers  of  your  patronage  here ;  and  that  such  devoted  com 
patriots  as  A.  H.  WELLS  and  JOHN  HOOKS  were  lifted  by  you  out  of  pauperism  into 
independence,  as  I  am  glad  I  was  not ;  and  yet  an  inquiry  from  you  as  to  my  needs 
arid  means  at  that  time  would  have  been  timely,  and  held  ever  in  grateful  remem 
brance. 

In  the  HARRISON  campaign  of  1840,  I  was  again  designated  to  edit  a  campaign 
paper.  I  published  it  as  well,  and  ought  to  have  made  something  by  it,  in  spite  of 
its  extremely  low  price  ;  my  extreme  poverty  was  the  main  reason  why  I  did  not . 
It  compelled  me  to  hire  press-work,  mailing,  &c.,  done  by  the  job,  and  high  charges 
for  extra  work  nearly  ate  me  up.  At  the  close,  I  was  still  without  property  and  in 
debt,  but  this  paper  had  rather  improved  my  position. 

Now  came  the  great  scramble  of  the  swell  mob  of  coon  minstrels  and  cider 
suckers  at  Washington — I  not  being  counted  in.  Several  regiments  of  them  went  on 
from  this  city  ;  but  no  one  of  the  whole  crowd — though  I  say  it  who  should  not- 
had  done  so  much  toward  Gen.  HARRISON'S  nomination  and  election  as  yours  re 
spectfully.  I  asked  nothing,  expected  nothing ;  but  you,  Gov.  SEWARD,  ought  to  have  asked 
that  I  be  POSTMASTER  OF  NEW  YORK.  Your  asking  would  have  been  in  vain  ; 
but  it  would  have  been  an  act  of  grace  neither  wasted  nor  undeserved. 

I  soon  after  started  The  Tribune,  because  I  was  urged  to  do  so  by  certain  of 
your  friends,  and  because  such  a  paper  was  needed  here.  I  was  promised  certain 
pecuniary  aid  in  so  doing  ;  it  might  have  been  given  me  without  cost  or  risk  to 
any  one.  All  I  ever  had  was  a  loan  by  piecemeal  of  $1,000,  from  James  Cogge- 
shall.  God  bless  his  honored  memory  !  I  did  not  ask  for  this,  and  I  think  it  is  the 
one  sole  case  in  which  I  ever  received  a  pecuniary  favor  from  a  political  associate. 
I  am  very  thankful  that  he  did  not  die  till  it  was  fully  repaid. 

And  let  me  here  honor  one  grateful  recollection.  When  the  Whig  party  under 
your  rule  had  offices  to  give,  my  name  was  never  thought  of ;  but  when,  in  '42-3,  we 
were  hopelessly  out  of  power,  I  was  honored  with  the  nomination  for  State  Printer. 
When  we  came  again  to  have  a  State  Printer  to  elect  as  well  as  nominate,  the  place 
went  to  WEED,  as  it  ought.  Yet  it  was  worth  something  to  know  that  there  was 


11 

day.  That  paper  being  edited  by  a  poet  and  a  critic — men  who  cher 
ish  gentlemanly  instincts,  and  are  sought  after  in  social  life,  from 
which  clodhoppers  are  excluded — apologized,  the  next  evening,  for 
the  allusion  to  yourself,  and  in  a  manner  so  happy  and  eulogistic, 
that  I  dare  say  you  did  not  regret  the  original  article.  But  no  re- 

once  a  time  when  it  was  not  deemed  too  great  a  sacrifice  to  recognize  me  as  belong 
ing  to  your  household.  If  a  neiv  office  had  not  since  been  erected  on  purpose  to  give  its 
valuable  patronage  to  H.  J.  RAYMOND,  and  enable  ST.  JOHN  to  shoiv  forth  his  Times,  as 
the  organ  of  the  Whig  State  Administration,  I  should  have  been  still  more  grateful. 

In  1848  your  star  again  rose,  and  my  warmest  hopes  were  realized  in  your 
election  to  the  Senate .  I  was  no  longer  needy,  and  had  no  more  claim  than  desire 
to  be  recognized  by  Gen.  TAYLOR.  I  think  I  had  some  claim  to  forbearance  from 
you.  What  I  received  thereupon  was  a  most  humiliating  lecture  in  the  shape  of 
a  decision  in  the  libel  case  of  REDFIELD  and  PRINGLE,  and  an  obligation  to  publish 
it  in  my  own  and  the  other  journal  of  our  supposed  firm.  I  thought,  and  still 
think,  this  lecture  needlessly  cruel  and  mortifying.  The  plaintiffs,  after  using 
my  columns  to  the  extent  of  their  needs  or  desires,  stopped  writing  and  called  on 
me  for  the  name  of  their  assailant.  I  proffered  it  to  them — a  thoroughly  responsi 
ble  name.  They  refused  to  accept  it,  unless  it  should  prove  to  be  one  of  the  four 
or  five  first  men  in  Batavia  ! — when  they  had  known  from  the  first  who  it  was,  and 
that  it  was  neither  of  them.  They  would  not  accept  that  which  they  had 
demanded  ;  they  sued  me  instead  for  money,  and  money  you  were  at  liberty  to 
give  to  them  to  their  heart's  content.  I  do  not  think  you  were  at  liberty  to  humiliate 
me  in  the  eyes  of  my  own  and  your0  public  as  you  did.  I  think  you  exalted  your 
own  judicial  sternness  and  fearlessness  unduly  at  my  expense.  I  think  you  had  a 
better  occasion  for  the  display  of  these  qualities  when  WEBB  threw  himself  entirely 
upon  you  for  a  pardon  which  he  had  done  all  a  man  could  do  to  demerit.  (His 
paper  is  paying  you  for  it  now.) 

I  have  publicly  set  forth  my  view  of  your  and  our  duty  with  respect  to  Fusion, 
Nebraska  and  party  designations.  I  will  not  repeat  any  of  that.  I  have  referred 
also  to  WEED'S  reading  me  out  of  the  Whig  party — my  crime  being,  in  this  as  in 
some  other  things,  that  of  doing  to-day  what  more  politic  persons  will  not  be  ready 
to  do  till  to-morrow. 

Let  me  speak  of  the  late  canvass.  1  was  once  sent  to  Congress  for  ninety  days, 
merely  to  enable  JIM  BROOKS  to  secure  a  seat  therein  for  four  years.  I  think  I  never  hinted  to 
any  human  being  that  I  would  have  liked  to  be  put  forward  for  any  place.  But  JAMES  W. 
WHITE!  (you  hardly  know  how  good  and  true  a  man  he  is)  started  my  name  for 
Congress,  and  BROOKS'  packed  delegation  thought  I  could  help  him  through  ;  so  I 

*  If  I  am  not  mistaken,  this  judgment  is  the  only  speech,  letter  or  document  addressed  to  the 
public  in  which  you  ever  recognized  my  existence.  I  hope  I  may  not  go  down  to  posterity  as 
embalmed  therein. 

•j-  (Note  by  the  writer.)    Now  Judge  Superior  Court,  and  every  way  worthy  of  this  allusion. 


gret  has  been  expressed  by  Horace  Greeley  for  the  insult  to  his  old 
friend,  and  to  the  daughters,  sons,  and  family  associates  of  that  old 
friend  !) 

But  to  even  such  a  cloud  there  is  a  silver  lining.  The  two 
words  of  insult  to  you  have  done  much  more  to  enlighten  the  pecu 
liar  admirers  of  Horace  Greeley,  as  to  his  editorial  vindictiveness  and 

was  put  on  behind  him.  But  this  last  Spring,  after  the  Nebraska  question  had 
created  a  new  state  of  things  at  the  North,  one  or  two  personal  friends,  of  no  politi 
cal  consideration,  suggested  my  name  as  a  candidate  for  Governor,  and  I  did  not 
discourage  them.  Soon,  the  persons  who  were  afterward  mainly  instrumental  in 
nominating  CLARK  came  about  me,  and  asked  if  I  could  secure  the  Know  Nothing 
vote.  I  told  them  I  neither  could  nor  would  touch  it ;  on  the  contrary,  I  loathed 
and  repelled  it.  Thereupon  they  turned  upon  CLARK. 

I  said  nothing,  did  nothing.  A  hundred  people  asked  me  who  should  be  run 
for  Governor.  I  sometimes  indicated  PATTERSON  ;  I  never  hinted  at  my  own  name. 
But  by-and-by  WEED  came  down,  and  called  me  to  him,  to  tell  me  why  he  could 
not  support  me  for  Governor.  (I  had  never  asked  nor  counted  on  his  support.) 

I  am  sure  WEED  did  not  mean  to  humiliate  me  ;  but  he  did  it.  The  upshot  of 
his  discourse  (very  cautiously  stated)  was  this  :  If  I  were  a  candidate  for  Governor, 
I  should  beat  not  myself  only,  but  you.  Perhaps  that  was  true.  But  as  I  had  in 
no  manner  solicited  his  or  your  support,  I  thought  this  might  have  been  said  to 
my  friends  rather  than  to  me.  I  suspect  it  is  true  that  I  could  not  have  been 
elected  Governor  as  a  Whig.  But  had  he  and  you  been  favorable,  there  would 
have  been  a  party  in  the  State  ere  this  which  could  and  would  have  elected  me  to 
any  post,  without  injuring  itself  or  endangering  your  re-election. 

It  was  in  vain  that  I  urged  that  I  had  in  no  manner  asked  a  nomination.  At 
length  /  was  nettled  by  his  language — well  intended,  but  very  cutting  as  addressed 
by  him  to  me — to  scry,  in  substance,  "  Well,  then,  make  PATTERSON  Governor,  and  try 
my  name  for  Lieutenant.  To  lose  this  place  is  a  matter  of  no  importance  ;  and  we  can 
see  whether  I  am  really  so  odious." 

I  should  have  hated  to  serve  as  Lieutenant-Governor,  but  I  should  have  gloried 
in  running  for  the  post.  I  want  to  have  my  enemies  all  upon  me  at  once  ;  I  am 
tired  of  fighting  them  piecemeal.  And,  though  I  should  have  been  beaten  in  the 
canvass,  I  know  that  my  running  would  have  helped  the  ticket,  AND  HELPED 
MY  PAPER. 

It  was  thought  best  to  let  the  matter  take  another  course.  No  other  name 
could  have  been  put  on  the  ticket  so  bitterly  humbling  to  me  as  that  which  was 
selected.  Th»  nomination  was  given  to  RAYMOND  ;  the  fight  left  to  me.  And  Gov. 
SEWARD,  T  have  made  it,  though  it  be  conceited  in  me  to  say  so.  What  little  fight 
there  has  been,  I  have  stirred  up.  Even  WEED  has  not  been  (I  speak  of  his  paper) 
hearty  in  this  contest,  while  the  journal  of  the  Whig  Lieut. -Governor  has  taken 
care  of  its  own  interests,  and  let  the  canvass  take  care  of  itself,  as  it  early  declared 


13 

political  hypocrisy,  than  did  even  his  celebrated  epistle  to  Senator 
Seward,  in  which  he  deprecated  his  loss  of  a  nomination  for  Lieu 
tenant-Governor,  because  it  also  lost  him  an  occasion  "to  help  my 
paper  !"(d) 

it  would  do.  That  journal  has  (because  of  its  milk-and-water  course)  some  twenty 
thousand  subscribers  in  this  city  and  its  suburbs,  and  of  these  twenty  thousand,  I 
venture  to  say  more  voted  for  ULLMANN  and  SCROGGS,  than  for  CLARK  and  RAYMOND  ; 
the  Tribune  (also  because  of  its  character)  has  but  eight  thousand  subscribers  with 
in  the  same  radius,  and  I  venture  to  say  that  of  its  habitual  readers,  nine-tenths 
voted  for  CLARK  and  RAYMOND — very  few  for  ULLMANN  and  SCROGGS.  I  had  to  bear 
the  brunt  of  the  contest,  and  take  a  terrible  responsibility  in  order  to  prevent 
the  Whigs  uniting  upon  JAMES  W.  BARKER,  to  defeat  FERNANDO  WOOD.*  Had 
BARKER  been  elected  here,  neither  you  nor  I  could  walk  these  streets  without  being 
hooted,  and  Know-Nothingism  would  have  swept  like  a  prairie-fire.  I  stopped 
BARKER'S  election  at  the  cost  of  incurring  the  deadliest  enmity  of  the  defeated 
gang  ;  and  I  have  been  rebuked  for  it  by  the  Lieut. -Governor's  paper.  At  the 
critical  moment,  he  came  out  against  JOHN  WHEELER,  in  favor  of  CHARLES  H.  MAR 
SHALL  (who  would  have  been  your  deadliest  enemy  in  the  House),  and  even  your 
Col. -General's  paper,  which  was  even  with  me  in  insisting  that  WHEELER  should  be 
returned,  wheeled  about,  at  the  last  moment,  and  went  in  for  MARSHALL — the 
Tribune  alone  clinging  to  WHEELER  to  the  last.  I  rejoice  that  they  who  turned  so 
suddenly  were  not  able  to  turn  all  their  readers. 

Gov.  SEWARD,  I  know  that  some  of  your  most  cherished  friends  think  me  a  great 
obstacle  to  your  advancement — that  JOHN  SCHOOLCRAFT,  for  one,  insists  that  you 
and  WEED  should  not  be  identified  with  me.  I  trust,  after  a  time,  you  will  not  be. 
I  trust  I  shall  never  be  found  in  opposition  to  you  ;  I  have  no  farther  wish  than  to 
glide  out  of  the  newspaper  world  as  quietly  and  as  speedily  as  possible,  join  my 
family  in  Europe,  and  if  possible  stay  there  quite  a  time — long  enough  to  cool  my 
fevered  brain  and  renovate  my  overtasked  energies.  All  I  ask  is  that  we  shall  be 
counted  even  on  the  morning  after  the  first  Tuesday  in  February,  as  aforesaid,  and 
that  I  may  thereafter  take  such  course  as  seems  best,  without  reference  to  the 
past. 

You  have  done  me  acts  of  valued  kindness  in  the  line  of  your  profession  :  let 
me  close  with  the  assurance  that  these  will  ever  be  gratefullyf  remembered  by 

Yours, 

HORACE  GREEIEY. 
Hon.  WM.  H.  SEWARD,  Present. 


*  (Note  by  the  writer.)  Here,  in  1854,  he  admits  aiding  the  election  of  Mr.  WOOD — but  ever 
afterward  any  person  suspected  of  such  an  endeavor,  has  beou  most  wantonly  assailed  by  Horace 
Greeley. — See  Tribune  Hies, passim. 

f  Quere  by  present  writer — CHICAGO  ? 


14 


Even  Tom  Pinch  found  out  Pecksniff  at  last,  and  the  few  remain 
ing  idolaters  of  Horace  Greeley  can  read  to  advantage  how  it  was 
that  Tom  discovered  his  deity  to  be  a  false  one,  if  they  will  ponder 
over  the  thirty-first  chapter  of  "  Martin  Ohuzzlewit."  (e) 

Permit  me  to  give  you  my  explanation  of  why  Horace  Greeley 
thus  singled  you  out  for  his  ridicule  from  among  75,000  electors. 
It  was  because  you  had  offended  his  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS.  (/) 

NOTE  (e).  As  one  by  one  these  idolators  make  some  discovery  which  shakes  their 
faith,  they  feel  as  Dickens  thus  describes  :  ' '  And  now  the  full  agitation  and  misery 
of  the  disclosure  came  rushing  upon  Tom  indeed.  The  star  of  his  whole  life  from 
boyhood  had  become,  in  a  moment,  putrid  vapor.  It  was  not  that  Pecksniff — Tom's 
Pecksniff — had  ceased  to  exist,  but  that  he  never  had  existed.  In  his  death,  Tom 
would  have  had  the  comfort  of  remembering  what  he  used  to  be,  but  in  this  dis 
covery  he  had  the  anguish  of  recollecting  what  he  never  was.  For  as  Tom's  blind 
ness  in  this  matter  had  been  total  and  not  partial,  so  was  his  restored  sight.  If  is 
Pecksniff  could  never  have  worked  the  wickedness  of  which  he  had  just  now  heard, 
but  any  other  Pecksniff  could  ;  and  the  Pecksniff  who  could  do  that,  could  do  any 
thing,  and  no  doubt  had  been  doing  anything  and  everything,  except  the  right 
thing,  all  through  his  career.  From  the  lofty  height  on  which  poor  Tom  had 
placed  his  idol,  it  was  tumbled  down  headlong,  and 

<  Not  all  the  king's  horses,  nor  all  the  king's  men, 
Could  have  set  Mr.  Pecksniff  up  again.' 

Legions  of  Titans  couldn't  have  got  him  out  of  the  mud." 

Then  it  will  be  remembered  that  Pecksniff,  listening  unseen  to  the  stunning 
soliloquy  which  followed  from  Tom  Pinch,  came  to  the  conclusion  to  be  beforehand, 
and  publicly  throw  Pinch  overboard.  Just  as  Horace  Greeley  has  thrown  Webster, 
Seward,  Campbell,  Hunt,  Weed,  Raymond,  McElrath,  &c.,  &c.,  overboard,  at  the 
precise  moment  when  they  had  severally  turned  him  out  of  the  gentlemen's  cabin. 
And  thus  it  was  Pecksniff  did  it  : 

"I  am  glad  he's  gone,"  said  old  Martin  Chuzzlewit,  drawing  a  long  breath, 
when  Tom  had  left  the  room.  ' '  It  is  a  relief, ' '  assented  Mr.  Pecksniff.  "  It  is  a  great 
relief.  But  having  discharged — /  hope,  with  tolerable  firmness — the  duty  which  I  owed  to  so 
ciety,  I  will  now,  my  dear  sir,  if  you  will  give  me  leave,  retire  to  shed  a  few  tears 
in  the  back  garden,  as  an  humble  individual." 

NOTE  (/).  "Self-consciousness" — 'consciousness  within  one's  self.' — Webster 
Diet.  Used  by  Locke.  Or  a  perpetual  consciousness  of  one's  self,  sleeping  or  waking, 
above,  beyond,  and  over  every  other  object  of  perception  and  sensation.  It  is  the 
very  opposite  of  what  is  thus  described  by  a  writer  in  the  February  Continental  Maga 
zine  :  ' '  The  process  described  so  philosophically  by  Coleridge,  to  lose  '  self  in  an  idea 
dearer  than  self,'  is  the  condition  of  all  greatness.  It  sublimated  the  life  of  Wash- 


15 


Horace  Greeley  is  a  man  of  strong  will  and  vigorous  thought. 
He  is  a  rapid  thinker,  and  a  headlong  writer.  He  possesses  native 
genius  ;  but  it  has  contracted  two  chronic  mental  diseases,  that 
increase  in  "illness'1  with  his  years.  One  is  a  morbid  self-con 
sciousness — worse  than  that  of  Narcissus  (g)  (whom,  in  justice  to 
the  world,  the  gods  speedily  sent  to  Hades).  The  other  disease  is 
a  villager's  fondness  for  hearing  and  retailing  gossip,  conjoined 
with  a  proneness  to  intermeddling  !  Instead  of  being  obliged  (as 
all  mortals  similarly  afflicted  are  obliged)  to  run  out  and  exercise  his 
self-consciousness  from  pillar  to  post,  or  to  pick  up  and  repeat  his  gos 
sip,  and  enact  his  intermeddling  around  the  world,  Horace  Greeley  has 
a  newspaper,  which  is  his  glass  to  reflect  self-consciousness  in — his 
viaduct  of  gossip  and  his  engine  of  intermeddling. 

This  extraordinary  self -consciousness  destroys  his  fidelity  to  friends, 
his  magnanimity  to  enemies,  his  devotion  to  country,  and  his  regard  for 
social  tranquillity, 

For  a  long  time  it  was  skillfully  concealed  by  a  claim  of  public 
spirit.  But  what  is  it  Sir  William  Draper,  in  his  second  letter  to 
Junius,  said  ?  "  Disappointed  ambition,  resentment  for  defeated 
hopes,  and  desire  of  revenge,  assume  but  too  often  the  appearance 
of  public  spirit." 

When  Horace  Greeley  edited  The  New  Yorker,  this  self-con 
sciousness  was  germinating.  But  when  Diogenes  (as  I  once  heard 
you  remark  on  the  stump)  gets  out  of  the  tub,  he  is  generally  a  dif- 

ington,  and  made  it  unique  in  the  annals  of  nations  ;  it  enabled  Shakspeare  to  in 
carnate  the  elements  of  humanity  in  dramatic  creations,  and  Kean  to  reproduce 
them  on  the  stage  ;  it  is  the  grand  law  of  the  highest  achievements  in  statesman 
ship,  in  letters,  and  in  art ;  without  which  they  fall  short  of  wide  significance  and 
enduring  vitality." 

NOTE  (g).  A  friendly  critic  asks  :  "Why  '  lug  in'  Narcissus?  he  has  nothing  to 
do  with  it!"  Let  us  refer  to  the  story  then.  Narcissus  was  the  son  of  Lyrope,  a 
nymph  of  the  ocean.  The  nymphs  of  the  mountains  heheld  him  with  admiiation. 
Beauteous  Echo  fell  in  love  with  him .  He  treated  them  and  her  with  scorn  and 
contempt.  The  goddess  Rhamnusia  granted  their  prayer  that  he  should,  for  pun 
ishment,  continually  desire  what  he  should  never  be  able  to  obtain.  Narcissus, 
happening  to  look  into  the  smooth  and  transparent  water  of  a  fountain,  became 
enamored  of  his  own  beautiful  person.  Day  by  day  he  returned  to  the  fountain  to 
behold  the  object  of  his  admiration.  He  looked  and  loved  incessantly.  Sometimes 


16 


ferent  philosopher  from  the  one  who  was  under  the  bunghole  !  The 
self-consciousness  was  only  developed  when  the  business  sagacity 
of  Thomas  McElrath  had  furnished  breeze  and  string  for  the  Horace 
Greeley  kite,  and  The  Tribune  soared  into  the  lower  clouds  of  popular 
favor,  and  invited  men's  attention.  Mr.  McElrath  being  modest, 
and  Horace  Greeley  otherwise,  that  attention  centred  on  the  latter. 
Diogenes  then  emerged  from  his  tub  !  And  his  editorials  began  to 
be,  what  they  have  always  continued  to  be,  conceived  in  the  words 
of  Gratiano,  "  I  am  Sir  Oracle,  and  when  I  ope  MY  lips  let  no  dog 
bark." 

Soon  fancying  the  results  of  his  self-consciousness  to  be  as 
palatable  to  the  public  as  they  were  to  himself,  he  attempted  to 
make  a  republic  of  Horace  Greeleys,  peopled  by  his  readers.  It 
was  not  a  fashion  of  diet  or  of  dress  he  would  set  (as  lower-order 
mortals  did)  but  one  of  morals  and  politics.  Horace  Greeley  en 
deavored  to  construct  with  his  editorial  pen  a  republic  of  Phalanxers 
and  free-lovers,  amateur  farmers  and  strong-minded  women.  But 
the  shrewd  hand  of  Thomas  McElrath  pulled  the  curb,  and  the  "  H.  G." 

he  attempted  to  kiss  the  beauteous  figure,  but  only  drenched  his  nostrils.  Some 
times  he  plunged  into  the  water — always  disappointed.  Wearied,  at  length,  with 
grief  and  disappointment,  he  abandoned  himself  to  despair,  and  the  gods  sent  him 
to  Hades.  The  shades  in  the  region  of  Pluto  were  often  surprised  by  the  ghost  of 
Narcissus  bending  over  the  gloomy  waters  of  the  Styx,  searching  for  the  earthly 
idol. 

In  an  apartment  adjoining  the  Sala  degli  Animali,  in  the  Museo  Pio  Clementino, 
at  Eome,  among  the  fine  collection  of  statues  is  one  of  Narcissus.  Of  this  figure 
Sir  J.  L.  Smith  observes  :  "  He  has  a  very  foolish  face,  which,  perhaps,  he  ought." 

Here  is  a  Narcissus  reflection  from  the  Washington  fountain.  In  the  Tribune  of 
January  4,  1861,  appears  this  telegram  conspicuously  among  the  war  news  : 

"MR.  GREELEY'S  LECTURE. 

"Horace  Greeley  delivered  a  lecture  to-night  before  a  dense  auditory  at  the  Smith 
sonian  Institution,  his  subject  being  'The  Nation.'  He  said  the  misfortune  of 
our  country  had  been  its  reluctance  to  meet  its  antagonist  in  the  eye.  Slavery  is 
the  aggressor,  and  has  earned  a  rebel's  doom.  Save  the  Union,  and  let  Slavery 
take  its  chance.  He  was  against  compromise,  because  it  implied  concession  to 
armed  treason  ;  and  expressed  his  belief,  that  the  present  contest  would  result  in 
enduring  benefits  to  the  cause  of  human  freedom.  President  Lincoln,  Secretary  Chase, 
and  several  Senators  and  Representatives  ivere  on  the  platform.  THE  LECTURER  WAS 
FREQUENTLY  APPLAUDED." 

The  italics  are  the  writer's.  Was  the  telegram  written  and  paid  for  by  some 
mountain  nymph  or  '  Echo '  ? 


17 


steed  ambled  off  into  the  race-course  of  personal  politics.  It  entered 
for  the  Epsom  cup  (which  turned  out  full  of  Epsom  salts)  of  Congress- 
ships,  and  Gubernatorial,  Senatorial  and  Ambassadorial  dignities. 
There  was  erected  a  grand  stand  for  those  who  betted  upon  each 
aspiration.  They  who  took  the  field  against  the  favorite,  were  placed 
behind  the  ropes  and  pummeled,  or  detained  over  night  in  Greeley- 
ian  cells  !  (h) 

Public  questions  and  private  quarrels  were  treated  of  in  Horace 
Greeley's  editorials  in  a  manner  best  calculated  to  make  them  sub- 
sidary  to  the  triumphs  of  this  self-consciousness.  The  editorials 
admitted  no  possibility  of  error,  and  were  without  qualification  of 
fact  or  doubt  of  logic.  There  were  no  "  peradventures,"  nor  "  if-we- 
are-not-mistakens."  They  were  of  the  Sir  Oracle,  dogmatic,  asser- 
tional  school  of  rhetoric, 


Did  a  Congressman  voyage  counter  to  H.  G.  breezes  —  "  Off 
with  his  head,  so  much  for  Buckingham  !"  was  heard  from  be 
hind  the  scenes,  (j)  Did  the  Chief  Justice  of  a  State  or  of  the 

NOTE  (h).  Again  refer  to  the  letter  to  Seward,  and  this  allusion  will  be  more 
understood. 

NOTE  (i).  "  With  purpose  to  be  dressed  in  an  opinion 
Of  wisdom,  gravity,  profound  conceit." 

Gratiano  —  MERCHANT  OF  VENICE. 

NOTE  (f).  A  rural  neighbor  of  Horace  Greeley,  and  his  friend  —  the  Hon.  John 
B.  Haskin,  M.  C.  —  was  thus  (Jan.  8th,  1858,  Tribune)  treated  for  running  coun 
ter,  &c.  :  "  Mr.  Haskin,  of  the  "Westchester  District,  in  this  State,  in  the  debate  in 
the  House  on  Wednesday,  at  Washington,  very  boldly  condemned  the  fillibustering 
of  Walker,  but  more  boldly  declared  in  favor  of  fillibustering  on  a  large  scale.  Mr. 
Haskin,  according  to  our  telegraphic  report,  despises  the  petit  larceny  of  individuals, 
but  glories  in  the  '  grand  larceny  of  nations  ;'  and  accordingly  he  is  for  stealing 
Cuba  by  all  the  power  of  the  Government.  Mr.  Haskin'  s  private  morals  are  of  no 
public  consequence  whatever  ;  but  we  recommend  him  to  observe  some  degree  of 
reticence  in  his  public  utterances.  It  is  of  no  service  to  anybody  to  boast  of  vil 
lainy  ;  and  the  man  who  does  it  not  only  discloses  his  want  of  virtue,  but  his  want 
of  sense.  A  knave  in  disguise  is  offensive  enough,  but  a  confessing  knave  is  worse. 
We  recognize  a  lurking  sense  of  decency  in  hypocritical  prof  essions  of  goodness,  but 
toward  blatant  rascality  there  can  be  no  sentiments  but  those  of  disgust.  Mr.  Has 
kin  will  find  himself  unable  to  get  on  in  the  course  he  has  chosen.  We  recom 
mend  him  to  the  confessional.  Let  him  come  out  and  admit  that  he  has  made  a 
fool  of  himself,  and  begin  again." 

2 


18 

United  States  think  differently  from  the  H.  G-.  groove  of  thought — 
presto  !  he  was  editorially  written  down  an  ass.  (k)  Arid  as  self- 
consciousness  is  a  contagious  disease,  it  extended  to  many  of 
Horace  Greelcy's  sta.ff.  Did  an  actor  nod  coldly  to  a  certain 
theatrical  critic — up  went  the  ink-bottle  at  the  actor's  whole  reper 
toire.  (I)  Did  a  judge  infringe  upon  the  crude  legal  ideas  of  a 
certain  bar  reporter,  the  same  missle  spotted  his  ermine,  (m)  Did  a 

Mr.  Haskin  did  not  confess  he  was  a  fool,  but,  like  a  sensible  man,  went  on  in  his 
own  course;  "being  one  of  the  unterrified"  Democracy.  But  in  two  months  his 
private  morals  and  public  worth  underwent  a  change,  because  H.  G.  found  him  sup 
porting  an  H.  G.  policy.  In  the  Tribune  of  March  13th,  1858,  Horace  Greeley  thus 
writes: 

"  We  make  room  this  morning  for  the  recent  speech  of  the  Hon.  John  B.  Haskin 
of  this  State,  against  the  attempt  of  the  President  and  the  Southern  members  of 
Congress  to  force  the  Lecompton  Constitution  upon  the  people  of  Kansas.  This 
speech  was  delivered  in  the  House  of  Kepresentatives  on  Wednesday  last,  and, 
according  to  the  testimony  of  all  beholders,  was  listened  to  with  extraordinary 
attention.  This  was  but  natural.  It  is  a  bold  and  manly  speech,  such  as  many  a 
Northern  craven,  who  now  truckles  and  yields  in  Congress,  will  hereafter  wish  he 
had  made  in  this  great  historical  crisis.  Of  course,  when  we  say  this,  we  do  not 
mean  to  be  understood  as  adopting  and  approving  every  word  and  sentiment  which 
this  speech  contains:  There  are  ideas  and  expressions  in  it  with  which  we  never 
shall  agree.  Mr.  Haskin  has  always  been  a  Hard-Shell  Democrat,  and  speaks  as 
such.  Would  to  God  his  words  of  wisdom  and  of  warning  might  be  heeded  by  the 
South,  in  whose  behalf  he  has  fought  many  a  political  battle,  and  to  which  he  has 
given  every  honorable  pledge  of  fidelity  !  It  is  indeed  surprising,  when  such  men 
as  Haskin  and  Douglas,  Walker,  Stanton,  and  Wise  rise  in  resistance  to  such  a  mea 
sure  as  this  Lecompton  fraud,  that  other  leaders  of  the  Democratic  party  should 
still  be  so  infatuated  as  to  force  it  upon  the  country.  Is  theirs  anything  but  the 
madness  which  precedes  destruction  ?" 

The  writer  particularly  remembered  these  two  editorials,  from  their  manufac 
turing  THREE  '  Tom  Pinches'  within  the  writer's  notice. 

NOTE  (k).  The  editorials  on  Chief  Justice  Taney,  about  the  Dred  Scott  decision, 
will  be  so  particularly  remembered  for  their  exceedingly  graceful  language  (!)  that 
quotations  would  be  wearisome. 

NOTE  (I).  The  same  will  be  remembered  of  the  articles  upon  Edwin  Forrest.  So 
late  as  December,  1860,  his  Boston  engagement  was  referred  to  in  a  manner  as 
peculiar  as  the  early  one.  The  editorial  pen  traveled  to  Boston  after  the  oppor 
tunity. 

NOTE  (m) .  Here  is  a  characteristic  selection.  Judge  Daly  had  trodden  on  H.  G's. 


19 


leading  author  refuse  his  homage  to  the  household  critic — "  Ana 
thema  r>  was  inscribed  upon  his  volume  on  the  H.  G.  shelf,  and 

temperance  corns.  Judge  Charles  P.  Daly,  of  the  New  York  Common  Pleas,  had 
then  been  over  fifteen  years  on  the  Bench.  He  is  widely  known  as  a  philosophic 
student  and  writer,  and  as  a  jurist,  on  or  off  the  Bench.  ( Vide  his  preface  to  E.  D. 
Smith's  Reports,  his  article  on  Naturalization,  in  the  Appleton  Cyclopaedia,  and  his 
recent  bold,  manly,  and  logical  letter  to  Senator  Harris,  on  the  privateersmen.) 
In  private  life  he  is  even  more  esteemed  than  in  public  ;  and  yet,  in  the  Tribune  of 
May  28,  1858,  appeared  the  following  H.  Gr.  editorial,  holding  the  Judge  up  to 
insult  : 

"  Judge  Daly  lately  tried  a  case  in  our  city,  involving  mainly  this  question — '  Is 
lager  beer  an  intoxicating  liquor  ?' — on  which  point  he  gave  a  hazym  and  inconsequent 
charge,  or  opinion,  savoring  far  more  of  lager  than  of  common  sense  or  logic.  The  con 
clusion  which  he  rather  indicated  than  attained  was,  that  lager  is  not  intoxicating, 
which  is  about  like  asserting  that  small-pox  is  not  a  fatal  disease.  There  is  pro 
bably  not  one  in  ten  of  the  persons  in  Court,  when  this  opinion  was  delivered, 
whom  a  liberal  supply  of  lager  would  not  render  stupidly,  senselessly  drunk  ;  and 
the  fact  that  there  were  a  few  '  old  soakers'  introduced  as  witnesses,  who  swore 
that  they  had  drunk  gallons  of  it  without  losing  the  use  of  their  limbs  or  their 
faculties,  only  proves  that  certain  human  constitutions  are  naturally  tough,  while 
others  become  indurated  by  constant  exposure  to  injurious  influences.  Mithri- 
dates,  it  is  said,  from  fear  of  poisons,  accustomed  himself  to  their  use — at  first,  in 
minute  quantities  ;  but  these  he  increased,  until  he  took,  with  little  apparent  harm, 
doses,  that  would  have  speedily  killed  persons  unhabituated  to  such  potions. 
Cases  akin  to,  though  hardly  so  striking  as  this,  abound  ;  and,  if  the  Judge's  rul 
ing,  with  reference  to  lager,  is  sound,  it  would  follow  from  his  premises  that  no 
such  thing  as  a  poison  is  known. ' ' 

In  the  Tribune  of  April  23,  1858,  appears  another  of  these  articles  from  the  pen 
of  H.  G.  Talk  of  the  elective  judiciary  ruining  the  country,  when  the  Bench,  high 
and  low,  is  continually  depreciated  by  Horace  Greeley  ! 

"The  Hon.  Judge  Thompson  of  our  [one-horse]  Marine  Court,  in  ruling,  last 
week,  the  case  of  Maria  Jenkins  against  Thaddeus  L.  Lewis — being  a  suit  of  a  col 
ored  woman  against  a  conductor  for  thrusting  her  out  of  a  car  on  the  Sixth  Avenue 
Railroad — is  reported  to  have  affirmed  these  points  : 

"  '  That  negroes  do  not  possess  the  same  rights  and  privileges  as  white  men  ;  re 
marking  that  the  Dred  Scott  decision  was  not  only  sound  law,  and  should  be  obey 
ed  by  every  good  citizen  of  the  community,  but  that  it  was  founded  on  principles 
of  justice,  reason,  and  Christianity.  That  the  plaintiff,  being  a  negro,  had  no  right 
to  a  seat  in  the  car  in  question  ;  that  it  was  the  duty  of  the  conductor  to  expel 
her,  under  the  rules  and  regulations  of  the  Company  ;  that  the  Company  had  the 
right  to  establish  such  rules  and  regulations  ;  that  negroes  might  be  permitted, 
but  were  not  entitled  to  a  seat  in  a  public  conveyance.  That  the  only  question  for 
the  jury  to  consider  was  whether  the  defendant  used  any  more  force  than  was  ne 
cessary  to  put  the  plaintiff  off  the  cars. ' 


even  his  publishers  maligned,  (n)  Did  a  statesman  differ  from 
H.  Gr.  policy — his  years  of  scholarship  and  patriotism  were  placed 
at  the  Joe  Miller  mercy  of  the  last  smart  young  man  from  Bos 
ton,  (o)  So  that  the  Tribune  readers  often  saw  reflected  in  the 
newspaper,  not  plain  facts  and  sound  logic,  but  the  idiosyncrasies, 
prejudices  and  likes  of  Horace  Greeley  and  his  peculiar  portion  of 
the  newspaper  staff. 

Suppose,  my  dear  Hoxie,  that  every  member  of  society  afflicted 
with  the  disease  of  self-consciousness,  had  a  newspaper  at  his  hand 
-to  think  aloud  in  at  all  times  of  the  day  and  night  ;  in  moods 
bilious,  phlegmatic,  saturnine,  sanguine  ;  before  breakfast  and  after 
breakfast  ;  when  domestic  roads  were  rough  or  macadamized  ; 
when  hopes  were  high  or  low  ;  when  selfishness  flew  easterly  or 
diablerie  puffed  southerly,  &c.,  &c. — in  short,  pouring  the  crudities 
Of  rapid  thought  into  the  columns  of  a  newspaper  a  la  Horace  Gree 
ley,  and  not  first  sifting  them  with  reflective  labor  ?  Why,  there 
would  be  a  confederation  of  Kilkenny-cat  States,  presided  over  by 
some  disappointed  philosopher  ! 

Next  of  the  gossip  disease. 

Horace  Greeley  is  a  victim  to  curiosity.  His  private  sanctum 
yearly  witnesses  a  constant  procession  of  gossips  or  "  needy  knife- 

"  With  all  deference  to  the  inscrutable  wisdom  of  a  judge — of  the  Marine  Court, 
especially — putting  our  hand  on  our  mouth  and  our  mouth  in  the  dust,  we  venture 
Umidly  to  suggest  that,  assuming  the  fundamental  positions,  above  laid  down,  to 
be  true  (as  who  shall  dare  to  question  such  a  decision  from  such  a  quarter  ?)  the 
Judge  came  short  of  his  duty  in  condescending  to  listen  to  the  suit  of  Maria  Jen 
kins  at  all.  "Was  not  that  point  expressly  made  in  the  Dred  Scott  case,  that  Dred, 
being  a  mere  nigger,  had  no  right  to  sue  a  man — of  course,  we  mean  a  white  man 
— and  bring  him  into  court  at  all  ?" 

In  Tribune,  June  1,  1858,  is  the  following  : 

"  The  Court  of  Common  Pleas  has  reversed  two  judgments  against  the  city, 
granted  in  that  one-horse  institution  known  as  the  Marine  Court.  There  have  been 
dozens  of  just  such  judgments  given  in  Ward  Courts  and  other  low  places,  which 
ought  to  be  set  right  by  some  responsible  legal  tribunal." 

NOTE  (n) .  Literary  men  and  publishers  can  readily  recall  scores  of  instances. 

NOTE  (o).  The  most  striking  instances  will  be  the  articles  on  Edward  Everett, 
holding  him  up  to  ridicule  in  all  possible  ways,  because  he  was  a  "  Union  saver." 


21 


grinders,"  or  an  avalanche  of  hearsay  communications — retailing 
rumors,  impressions,  scandals,  opinions,  guesses,  &c.,  &c.  Horace 
Greeley  pours  these  into  his  alembic  or  worm-still  or  retort  (or 
whatsoever  you  may  choose  to  call  it),  and  the  next-morning  readers 
have  the  benefit  of  the  first-proof  distillations.  For,  credulous  him 
self,  he  believes  in  them  all,  and  drinks  them  smilingly.  This  is 
not  wonderful,  you  may  say,  since  he  so  supremely  believes  in  him 
self. 

Necessarily  there  follow  modifications,  or  amplifications,  or  cor 
rections  in  after  issues  of  the  paper,  as  the  new  set  of  rumor-mon 
gers  or  incensed  friends  rush  into  the  line  of  the  rapid  procession 
toward  the  shrine  of  gossip,  (p)  So,  that  an  ingenious  European 

NOTE  (p).  In  the  Tribune,  May  8,  1858,  appears  the  following  (which  may  also  be 
taken  in  connection  with  $he  references  to  the  Bench,  before  given) : 

"  It  would  seem,  from  the  official  acts  of  the  two  ornaments  of  the  Bench,  who 
preside  over  our  local  Criminal  Court,  Recorder  Barnard  and  Judge  Russell,  that 
law  is  at  the  most  only  a  matter  of  opinion,  to  be  warped  and  twisted  just  as  the 
humor  of  the  Bench  may  happen  to  rule  the  hour.  The  Mayor,  with  praiseworthy 
care  for  the  public  welfare,  has  recently  directed  the  arrest  of  certain  gamblers ; 
but  in  the  beginning  of  the  good  work,  he  is  met  by  the  indecent  interference  of  a 
night- wandering  Police  Justice.  However,  he  succeeded  in  getting  a  few  of  the 
arrested  parties  before  Recorder  Barnard,  where  a  charge  of  gambling  was  made 
against  one,  at  least,  who  is  everywhere  known  to  be  the  proprietor  of  a  gambling- 
house.  Ex-Recorder  Smith,  wh'o,  since  retiring  from  the  Bench,  seems  to  be  the 
standing  counsel  for  every  gambler  who  gets  into  difficulty,  appeared  on  this  occa 
sion,  and  so  managed  the  cross-examination,  that  Barnard  discharged  this  man,  and 
all  others  brought  up  on  similar  complaints.  He  also  volunteered  the  opinion 
that  these  arrests  were  illegal  ;  to  which  the  ex-Recorder  assented,  adding  that,  had 
the  officers  been  shot  while  making  these  arrests,  the  homicides  could  not  have 
been  punished  for  killing  them." 

This  is  a  conspicuous  editorial  !  One  week  later,  May  15,  in  small  type,  appears 
the  following  ' '  modification' '  : 

' '  Upon  more  particular  inquiry  in  regard  to  the  recent  foray  upon  gambling 
houses,  we  find  that  the  primary  and  essential  formality  of  a  complaint,  under 
oath,  by  two  responsible  citizens,  had  not  been  made  against  any  one  of  the  houses 
visited,  nor  had  the  next  indispensable  step — a  written  order  from  a  Commissioner 
of  Police — been  observed.  The  officers  seem  to  have  gone  to  work  on  their  own 
account,  more  with  a  view  of  frightening  than  of  really  arresting  men  suspected  of 
gambling.  Consequently,  when  called  upon  to  make  the  required  legal  com 
plaints,  they  had  neither  the  data  nor  the  disposition  to  proceed.  In  the  absence 
of  warrants  under  the  old  statutes  and  of  the  required  formalities  under  the  Police 


friend,  after  perusing  (among  the  curiosities  of  the  Historical 
Library)  some  files  of  the  Tribune,  remarked  :  "  A  person  should 
read  it  only  every  other  day.  Yet  he  must  take  care  to  start 
rightly.  If  he  began  on  a  thinking-aloud  morning  or  a  first-blush 
rumor  day,  and  skipped  the  days  of  after  thoughts,  or  modifications, 

act,  the  Recorder  had  no  alternative  but  to  discharge  the  parties  unconditionally. 
Having  believed,  from  the  tenor  of  the  proceedings,  that  all  due  preliminaries  had 
been  observed,  we  could  not  understand  this  unexpected  discharge  ;  but  the  facts 
above  stated  place  the  matter  in  a  different  light,  and  exonerate  the  Recorder  from 
any  responsibility  for  this  one  more  of  many  failures  in  attempting  to  repress  one 
of  the  worst  vices  of  the  city." 

Of  the  thousands  who  read  and  believed  the  primary  reckless  statement,  how 
many  dozens  saw  the  ' '  modification' '  ? 

In  the  Tribune  of  May  24,  1858,  is  the  following  : 

"  Archbishop  HUGHES  explicitly  and  indignantly  denies"  the  story  of  a  secret  Roman 
Catholic  organization  for  the  propagation  and  defense  of  that  Church,  which  we 
copied  last  week  from  The  Albany  Statesman.  We  have  no  doubt  of  the  truth  of  this 
denial.  We  published  The  Statesman's  story  asa  part  of  the  gossip  of  the  day,  believing  that 
it  would  be  refuted  if,  as  seemed  highly  probable,  it  was  a  fabrication.  And  where  an  issue 
is  made  between  an  anonymous  assailant  and  a  well-known  respondent,  there  should 
never  be  any  hesitation  as  to  crediting  the  man  without  a  mask." 

Those  who  remember  the  atrocious  libel  on  the  venerable  Prelate,  which  is  thus 
flippantly  referred  to,  will  not  need  to  "  make  a  note  on't." 

To  show  furthermore,  that  Horace  Greeley  does  not  spare  sect,  here  is  another 
extract  : 

"  We  are  reliably  assured  that  the  Rev.  Dr.  Adams,  of  our  city,  is  now  maturing, 
in  concert  with  some  other  learned  and  influential  divines,  mainly  connected  with 
the  American  Bible  Society,  plans  for  a  revision  of  the  Received  Version  which  shall 
leave  the  words  baptize,  &c.,  as  they  are,"  &c. — Tribune,  May  10,  1858. 

This  was  in  a  conspicuous  editorial.  In  the  Tribune  of  next  day,  in  small  type, 
fifth  page,  (no  attention  called  to  it !)  appears  the  following  letter  from  the  clergy 
man  assailed  : 

"  To  the  Editor  of  the  New  York  Tribune: 

11  SIR  :  Judge  of  my  astonishment  on  reading  the  following  item  of  intelligence  in 
your  paper  of  this  date  : 

' '  '  We  are  reliably  assured  that  the  Rev.  Dr.  Adams,  of  our  city,  is  now  maturing, 
in  concert  with  some  other  learned  and  influential  divines,  mainly  connected  with  the 
American  Bible  Society,  plans  for  a  revision  of  the  Received  Version  which  shall 
leave  the  words  baptize,  &c.,  as  they  are  (or,  as  the  Baptists  say,  untranslated) — the 
Baptist  version  now  in  progress  giving  "immerse,"  "  immersing,"  for  "  baptize," 


23 


or  corrected  rumors,  he  was  naturally  a  bewildered  reader.  But  if 
he  reversed  the  arrangement,  he  became  measurably  contented  with 
Tribune  views  —  especially  if  he  read  another  daily  paper  as  an  altera 
tive" 

The  meddlesome  disease  leads  Horace  Greeley  towards  threats 
and  dictations.  He  meddles,  for  example,  with  Federal,  State  and 
local  legislation,  as  an  individual  and  a  partisan,  (^)  when  the  un- 


"  baptizing,"  &c.     Our  informant  may  have  blended,  in  some  degree,  his  inferences 
with  his  facts  ;  but  there  can  be  little  doubt,'  &c. 

"This  is  the  first  information  I  have  ever  received  of  this  important  fact.  Your 
informant  certainly  lias  '  blended  his  inferences  with  his  tacts,'  and  his  facts  with 
his  imaginations.  There  is  not  a  '  shadow  of  truth'  in  what  is  here  affirmed  in 
connection  with  my  name. 

'  '  The  KECEIVED  VERSION  of  the  Bible  is  good  enough  for  me,  and  the  following  pas 
sage  in  it  needs  no  '  revision'  :  '  Thou  shalt  not  bear  false  witness  against  thy 
neighbor.'  WILLIAM  ADAMS. 

"Madison-square  Church,  May  10,  1858." 

The  last  sentence  is  capital  !     So  much  for  the  illustrations  of  the  gossip  disease. 

NOTE  (q).  Horace  Greeley  permits  no  one  to  advise  with  the  Legislature  or  Con 
gress  unless  through  his  paper.  The  most  legitimate  way  of  influencing  a  legisla 
tive  body  is  thus  well  stated  in  a  speech  of  the  Hon.  Mr.  Alvord,  of  the  New  York 
Assembly,  January  21,  1862  : 

"In  conclusion,  permit  me  to  remind  the  House,  that  it  is  part  of  the  history 
of  this  State,  that  before  all  the  committees  of  this  Legislature  there  have  been 
found,  from  time  to  time,  men  who  stand  as  high  as  any  in  the  State,  in  character 
and  position,  and  appearing  as  counsel,  advocating  the  cause  of  those  by  whom 
they  have  been  employed,  and  receiving  large  amounts  in  payment  for  their 


services." 


The  writer  has  only  room  for  three  specimens  of  Horace  Greeley 's  patent  lobby 
articles.  The  italics  tell  their  own  story.  The  first  and  second  are  both  from 
the  Tribune  of  April  19,  1858 — editorial  type. 

' '  Governor  King  has  vetoed  the  bill  authorizing  the  Harlem  Railroad  to  run  its  cars 
by  steam  down  to  Thirty-second  street  (as  at  present),  instead  of  using  horse-power 
exclusively  below  Forty-second  street,  as  is  required  by  an  ordinance  of  our  Com 
mon  Council.  WE  are  inclined  to  approve  this  veto,  although  the  end  it  subserves  is  a  bad 
one.  The  distance  between  the  two  points  indicated  is  mainly  a  tunnel,"  &c.,  &c. 

"The  Legislature  has  interpolated  into  the  Annual  Tax  bill  of  our  city,  an  item 
covering  the  payment  of  Mr.  D.  D.  Conover's  salary,  and  the  salaries  of  his  subor 
dinates,  as  officers  of  the  Street  Department,  during  the  pendency  of  the  contest 


thinking  portion  of  the  world  deem  him  a  public-spirited  editor. 
When  Horace  Greeley  is  Speaker,  Clerk,  Chairman  of  Committee, 

lobby  adviser,  &c.,  &c.,  all  legislation  progresses  swimmingly 

in  his  newspaper.  But  if  he  burns  his  fingers  (as  meddlesome 
school-boys  often  do),  he  thinks  all  around  him  have  similar  black 
ened  fingers.  He  perpetually  "  lobbies"  with  the  outer  world.  In 
deed,  there  is  no  greater  lobbyer  in  the  United  States — although  he 
is  continually  raising  the  hue  and  cry  against  others.  A  parlia 
mentary  lawyer  in  England  or  in  this  country  who  is  employed  to 
prepare  or  explain  private  bills  to  a  Commons,  Congressional,  leg 
islative  or  civic  committee,  must  pack  trunk,  travel  and  lodge  at 
hotels,  to  accomplish  his  employment.  'Horace  Greeley  is  more  for 
tunate.  Seated  in  his  editorial  chair,  he  summons  pen,  ink,  paper, 
printer's  devils,  compositors,  pressmen,  news-boys  and  Federal 
mails  to  accomplish  his  lobbying. 

Is  there  a  Minnesota  land  grant  to  be  helped  ;  a  railroad  charter 
in  Iowa  to  be  furthered  ;  a  Greeleyite  Speaker  to  be  chosen  at 
Washington  ;  an  office-holder  to  be  badgered  into  bringing  his  ad 
vertising  patronage  ('to  help  my  paper')  lest  his  fees  suffer;  an 
;anti-Greeleyite  Clerk  to  be  slaughtered  at  Albany  ;  a  Boston  Mayor 

between  him  and  Charles  Devlin — also  of  his  legal  expenses  in  contesting  the  claims 
of  Devlin.  If,  as  we  understand,  this  item  is  simply  permissory — that  is,  it  simply 
enables  our  municipal  authorities  to  pay  Conover  and  his  subordinates,  if  they  see 
fit,  without  requiring  them  to  do  so — WE  have  no  sort  of  objection.  Mr.  Conover  and 
his  associates  have  rendered  the  city  a  great  service  in  exposing  the  wholesale 
villainies  whereof  the  Street  Department  has  been  the  arena,  and  we  believe  our 
taxpayers  will  gladly  see  them  paid  for  this  service.  The  work  has  been  done— 
we  believe  well  done — and  the  city  has  largely  benefited  by  it  :  if  so,  the  city 
should  be  willing  to  pay.  But  paying  salaries  to  Mr.  Conover  and  his  subordinates, 
with  fat  fees  to  his  lawyers— WE  shall  want  to  think  of  this." 

This  is  from  the  Tribune  of  February  22d,  1858  : 

"The  State  of  New  York  is  blessed,  by  some  inscrutable  dispensation  of  Providence 
and  the  enlightened  favor  of  the  Irish  groggeries  of  Buffalo,  with  a  legislator 
named  Laning,  who,  on  Friday  last,  made  a  striking  exhibition  of  his  quality  by 
moving  in  the  Assembly  the  following  preamble  and  resolution :  (Here  follows 
one  about  Kansas  frauds,  &c.) 

"We  have  hitherto  asked  no  favors  of  this  Assembly,  nor  even  of  the  Rebublican 
minority  therein  ;  but  we  now  ask  and  insist  that  this  Buffalo  libeler  of  men,  whose 
names  he  is  not  worthy  to  utter,  be  compelled  to  make  the  investigation  he  here 
pretends  to  desire.  His  preamble  is  a  tissue  of  calumnies  which  he  had  no  business 


to  be  overawed  ;  a  Philadelphia  Judge  to  be  intimidated  ;  a  Balti 
more  jury  to  be  influenced  ;  or  a  New  York  Judge  to  be  interested 
in  '  my  friend's '  case  ;  or  a  pet  scheme  to  be  furthered  at  Trenton  ; 
or  a  City  Hall  Councilman  to  be  dragooned  into  voting  a  printing 
bill — then  Horace  Greeley's  pen  editorially  will  do  the  necessary 
lobbying  ;  and  all  the  more  effectually  because  it  is  the  livery  of 
the  public-spirited  Horace  Greeley  wherein  the  lobby-devil  sub 
serves  the  private  end.  (r) 

to  put  forth,  unless  he  really  purposed  to  press  the  investigation  they  seem  to  con 
template.  As  among  those  whom  his  accomplice  of  The  Atlas  declares  to  be  spe 
cially  aimed  at  in  his  libel,  we  demand  that  the  investigation  be  had,  and  that  it  be 
most  thorough.  We  demand  that  all  the  facts  be  elicited,  and  that  the  Assembly 
record  its  deliberate  judgment  thereon." 

NOTE  (r).  If  any  reader  doubts  these  things,  let  him  watch  Horace  Greeley 's 
editorials  for  a  year  to  come. 

The  veteran  editor  of  the  Albany  Evening  Journal  (responding  editorially,  Sep 
tember  21,  1861,  to  an  editorial  walk  which  Horace  Greeley  had  recently  taken  in 
this  livery)  thus  remarked  : 

"  It  has  been  our  duty  and  task,  for  nearly  forty  years,  to  raise  money  for  elec 
tions.  During  more  than  half  that  time  we  did  so  in  consultation  and  co-opera 
tion  with  Mr.  GREELEY. 

' '  But  if  we  have  sinned  in  this  way,  Mr.  GREELEY  ought  not  to  '  cast  the 
first  stone.'  He  has  not  always  been  fastidious  in  the  use  of  money  at  elec 
tions,  or  in  legislation.  He  knows  how  much  it  cost — and  out  of  whose  pockets 
the  money  came — to  elect  a  Speaker  in  Congress  !  He  knows  how  he  expected 
to  be  reimbursed.  He  knows  for  what  purpose  a  $1,000  check  was  handed  to 
him.  And  he  knows — as  we  believe — that  while  in  this  latter  particular  he  was 
blameless — how  easy  it  is  to  mystify  and  malign — how  swiftly  falsehood  travels,  and 
how  tardily  truth  follows." 

The  largest  private  caucus  of  moneyed  men  the  writer  ever  attended  (and  con 
vened  to  raise  money  for  election  purposes),  was  addressed  by  Horace  Greeley.  So 
eloquently  did  he  plead  for  money  for  Pennsylvania,  that  after  supper  five  thousand 
dollars  was  raised. 

In  this  connection,  if  Horace  Greeley  wants  to  remember  how  he  feels  when 
charged,  as  he  systematically  and  constantly  charges  public  men,  let  him  read  his 
own  editorial  on  the  House  Investigation  Committee  (Tariff  Inquiry — Tribune,  May 
26,  1858),  in  which  he  defends  himself  against  the  oaths  of  two  witnesses,  charging 
him  with  peccadillo. 

Here  are  instances  of  the  recklessness  of  Horace  Greeley  toward  private  citi 
zens  : 


When  Horace  Greeley  emerged  from  the  crisis  of  a  brain  fever 
in  order  to  deny  his  complicity  with  the  "  On  to  Kichmond"  (s)  med- 


it 


The  Courier  and  Enquirer  thinks  we  speak  too  harshly  of  the  eminent  merchants 
and  bankers  who  signed  the  call  for  the  Lecompton  Meeting  at  Tammany  Hall. 
'  We  do  not  question  their  motives,'  says  the  C.  and  E.  Nor  do  we,  responds  THE 
TRIBUNE.  We  do  these  gentlemen  the  justice  to  disbelieve  them  amateur  lovers  of 
villainy,  upholding  fraud  and  forgery  from  sheer  love  of  those  dubious  operations. 
We  are  quite  sure  that  if  Messrs.  Stewart  Brown,  Moses  Taylor,  Charles  Aug.  Davis, 
&c.,  ivere  not  interested  in  Ocean  Steamers,  Ocean  Telegraphs,  &c.,  for  which  they  de 
sire  the  continued  patronage  and  bounty  of  the  Government,  they  could  never  have 
been  induced  to  sign  this  call. 

"  With  us,  fraud  is  fraud,  forgery  is  forgery,  and  the  attempt  to  fasten  upon  an 
all  but  unanimously  resisting  people  a  frame  of  government  and  set  of  rulers  no 
toriously  loathed  by  them,  is1  a  flagrant  crime.  So  holding,  we  so  act  and  speak, 
leaving  others  to  do  as  they  see  fit."  —Tribune,  March  5,  1858. 

"This  exposition  makes  it  manifest,  that  the  question  of  the  African  slave-trade 
has  two  sides  to  it  at  the  South,  and  shows  that  its  opening  depends  entirely  upon 
which  of  the  two  great  Southern  interests  dominates  in  the  Federal  Government. 
If  Mr.  Buchanan's  Administration  should  approve  the  project,  we  have  no  doubt 
that  Messrs.  Henry  Grinnell,  Matthew  Morgan,  J.  H.  Brower,  John  A.  Dix,  John 
Van  Buren,  Robt.  J.  Dillon,  Moses  Taylor,  Watts  Sherman,  Charles  A.  Davis,  Stew 
art  Brown,  and  thirty-three  hundred  others,  would  voluntarily  come  forward  to  call 
a  meeting  at  Tammany,  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  the  President  in  that  virtuous 
undertaking.  Why  not  ?  The  act  would  not  be  half  so  mean  as  the  one  they 
have  just  performed  in  this  line,  for  it  would  be  dignified  by  the  selfish  purpose  of  pro 
moting  their  own  interests,  at  a  period  of  uncommon  commercial  dearth."  -Tribune,  March 
10,  1858. 

NOTE  (s).  Here  is  a  'fac  simile  of  the  startling  editorial  kept  in  the  H.  G.  column  for 
iveeks ;  the  one  ever  before  Congressmen  and  politicians,  when  goaded  themselves 
into  goading  Scott  and  Lincoln  : 


THE    NATION'S    WAR-CRY. 

forward  to  Richmond  !  Forward  io  Richmond  ! 
The  Rebel  Congress  must  not  ~be  allowed  to  meet 
there  on  the  20th  July !  BY  THAT  DATE  THE 

PLACE    MUST   BE    HELD    BY    THE    N/ATIOXAL    AliMY  ! 


Let  us  appeal  from  Philip  drunk  to  Philip  sober.  In  his  paper  of  June  llth, 
1858,  he  thus  wrote  regarding  a  probable  war  with  England  : 

' '  It  is,  perhaps,  however,  presuming  a  little  too  much  on  the  disinterestedness, 
the  purely  public  spirit,  of  our  Congressional  war-mongers,  to  imagine  that  the 
mere  prospect  of  a  dreadful  scourge  to  the  nation  ;  a  shock  to  the  foundations  of 


dling,  I  at  first  thought  it  was  an  effort  at  moral  courage  and  patriot 
ism  ;  and  so  I  said.  But  it  has  since  become  evident  that  it  was 
the  supreme  self-consciousness  which  dictated  the  disclaimer  ;  and 
Horace  Greeley's  self-consciousness-disease,  and  its  concomitant 
symptoms  of  gossip  and  meddling,  must  be  held  accountable  for  the 
Manassas  massacre  by  every  widow  and  orphan  of  last  July.  I 
think,  my  dear  Hoxie,  you  and  I,  under  the  same  circumstances, 
would  have  had  respective  brain  fevers — but  perhaps  we  should  not 
have  recovered  so  readily. 

Is  it  not,  therefore,  evident  that  all  the  self-consciousness,  growth 
of  idiosyncrasy,  dogmaticalness,  gossipy  irresolution  of  statement, 
meddlesome  dealing  with  everything  and  everybody,  will  convert 
Horace  Greeley's  paper  into  a  blundering  and  unreliable  affair  ?  Your 
Editor,  all  the  civilized  world  over,  has  become  a  thinking  machine 
for  society.  Readers  take  their  "  what's-o'-clock"  of  public  fact  and 
popular  logic  from  him.  And  Horace  Greeley's  peculiar  public  (t)  (di 
minished  one  fifth  by  the  Seward  letter,  another  fifth  by  the  Bull 
Run  meddling,  a  third  fifth  by  his  recent  covert  sneers  at  that  most 
loyal  man,  Abraham  Lincoln — whom,  by  the  way,  he  opposed  for 
U.  S.  Senator,  advocating  Douglass)  has  come  to  discover  that  the 
Horace  Greeley  clock  needs  oiling  and  winding  up  too  often,  and 
goes  too  fast,  for  reliability,  at  a  foreign  and  domestic  crisis  like 
the  present,  (u) 

society ;  changes  for  the  worse  in  the  character  of  our  Government,  bad  as  it  is 
already  ;  interruption  or  overthrow  of  private  happiness,  and  misery  and  wretched 
ness  in  multiplied  forms,  would  prove  preponderant  considerations  with  them 
when  placed  in  the  balance  against  the  chance  of  political  position  for  themselves. 
Let  us,  therefore,  suggest  to  our  aspirants  for  political  eminence,  that  for  ambitious 
civilians  nothing  can  be  more  doubtful  and  hazardous  than  a  war." 

NOTE  (t).  The  writer  does  not  wish  to  be  understood  as  asserting  that  the  Tribune 
public  is  thus  diminished.  The  writer  knows  nothing  of  the  merits  of  the  circulation 
question.  Herein  he  is  to  speak,  and  does  speak,  of  what  he  knows  and  reads  about 
Horace  Greeley.  There  is  an  obvious  distinction  between  Horace  Greeley's  public  and 
the  Tribune  public.  Thousands  who  read  the  Tribune  don't  believe  in  Horace 
Greeley.  If  the  paper  were  rid  of  him,  it  would  be  of  more  value  to  the  stockholders, 
and  if  the  whale  had  not  thrown  up  Jonah,  Jonah  might  have  disemboweled  the 
whale,  for  all  his  blubber  and  powers  of  spouting. 

NOTE  (u}.  Horace  Greeley  editorially,  January  9,  1859,  thus  wrote  HIS  own  shame 
and  fate : 


28 


And  so  it  was,  my  dear  Hoxie,  because  you  crossed  Horace 
Greeley's  meddlesome  path,  and  became  the  victim  of  his  gossip- 
procession,  and  wounded  his  self-consciousness,  that  you  were 
gazetted  as  "  Poor  Joe  ;"  and  are  added  to  the  list  in  Horace  Gree- 
ley's  day-book  of  the  debtors  to  be  dunned  whenever  the  wound 
gapes  or  rankles. 

The  veracious  historian  must  some  day  indict  this  Greeleyian 
self-consciousness  for  many  offenses.  For  its  blasphemies  ;  (v)  for 

' '  Newspapers  are  (or  ought  to  be)  printed  for  the  information  and  entertain 
ment  of  the  whole  community  ;  but  when  they  are  made  mere  advocates  of  petty 
or  even  of  ponderous  private  interests,  the  advertisers  of  personal  schemes,  and 
puffers  of  men,  who,  whether  connected  with  them  or  not,  have  a  large  number  of 
axes  to  grind,  they  must  lose  all  independence,  manliness,  and,  in  fact,  all  sub 
stantial  patronage.  Their  insolvency  must  come  in  time.  Should  they  have  em 
ployed  upon  them  writers  disposed  to  speak  their  minds,  and  indisposed  to  submit 
to  dictation,  they  must  lose  those  writers  in  time.  The  consequence  must  be  shift- 
lessness,  inequality  of  management,  and  frequent  surrenders  of  the  ghost." 

NOTE  (v).  Lest  this  should  seem  a  harsh  word,  here  is  the  concluding  paragraph 
in  the  Tribune  of  Christmas  Day,  1861,  in  an  H.  G.  editorial,  on  Treasury  frauds  : 

"0  for  another  Christ,  with  whip  of  (not  very)  small  cords  to  scourge  with 
Divine  wrath  the  money-changers  out  of  the  Temple  of  Liberty,  which  they  pro 
fane  and  pollute  !" 

To  the  clergymen,  whom  Horace  Greeley  boasts  are  his  especial  adulators,  the 
writer  commends  the  following  collateral  illustrations  : 

from  the  Tribune  of  January  7,  1861. 
"  DR.  RAPHALL'S  BIBLE. 

' '  The  Rev.  Dr.  Raphall  is  a  burning  and  a  shining  light  in  our  New  York 
Israel.  As  Senator  Wade  said  of  his  co-religionist,  Judah  P.  Benjamin,  he  is  '  an 
Israelite  with  Egyptian  principles.'  On  the  President's  Fast-day,  he  preached  a 
•sermon  in  the  Greene-street  Synagogue,  wherein  he  demonstrated,  to  his  own 
satisfaction,  that  Human  Slavery  is  sanctioned  by  Divine  law.  Now,  in  so  far  as 
the  Rev.  Dr.  assumed  to  quote  and  to  expound  the  law  of  Moses,  we  let  him  pass, 
and  proceed  to  the  other  branch  of  the  subject.  We  quote  from  a  report  of  his 
discourse  as  follows." 

From  the  Tribune,  May  5,  1858. 

"  We  note  considerable  surprise  expressed  in  the  columns  of  our  distant  cotem- 
poraries  at  the  late  vote  of  the  School  Officers  of  our  Fourth  Ward  excluding  the 
Bible  from  their  Ward  Schools.  Our  own  notion  is,  that  it  was  an  act  of  justice  to 
the  Bible  for  which  those  who  revere  that  book  should  be  deeply  grateful.  About 
every  fourth  dwelling  in  the  Fourth  Ward  is  either  a  grog-shop,  gaming-house  or 


its  larcenies  of  reputation,  grand  arid  petit  ;  for  its  counterfeits  of 
patriotism  ;  (w)  for  its  forgeries  on  public  virtue  ;  for  its  homicides 

brothel ;  many  of  them  are  two  of  these  '  rolled  into  one,'  and  some  are  all  three.  At 
least  half  the  voters  of  this  "Ward  are  residents  of  grog-shops,  or  brothels,  or  both  ; 
and  these  '  institutions '  are  rather  lower,  filthier,  and  more  revolting  than  similar 
dens  almost  anywhere  else.  There  are  about  2,000  legal  voters  in  the  Fourth 
Ward,  and  they  polled  2,637  votes  at  our  last  election,  of  which  Fernando  Wood 
had  2,112.  Of  course,  the  Ward  Officers  elected  are  all  zealous  Wood  men.  If  the 
great  majority  of  the  people  of  the  Fourth  Ward  saw  fit  to  live  with  any  sort  of 
respect  to  the  precepts  of  the  Bible,  it  would  be  very  well  to  keep  the  Sacred  Vol 
ume  in  their  schools  ;  but,  as  the  case  is,  they  do  well  to  kick  it  out.  There  is  no 
other  course  among  those  which  they  are  at  all  inclined  to  pursue  which  would  do 
the  Book  so  much  credit." 

From  the  same,  April  3,  1858. 

"  The  Legislature  is  worrying  over  a  bill  to  restrict  the  present  exemption  (to  the 
extent  of  $1,500)  of  a  clergyman's  property  from  taxation  to  such  clergymen  as 
are  inactive  clerical  service.  To  which  it  is  demurred  that  a  worn-out,  unemployed 
clergyman  needs  it  more  than  one  who  has  still  a  parish  and  a  salary.  Either  of 
these  suggestions  is  well  enough  ;  but  better  than  either  would  be  a  bill  abolishing 
all  exemptions  of  clergymen's  property  from  taxation.  Such  exemption  is  wrong 
in  principle  and  unfair  in  practice.  Many  a  clergyman  whose  income  is  $1,500  or 
over  per  annum  now  goes  tax-free,  while  his  farming,  blacksmithing,  shoemaking 
neighbors,  whose  income  is  not  nearly  so  liberal,  have  to  pay  taxes  on  whatever 
property  they  may  have,  like  anybody  else.  So  long  as  our  Constitution  absurdly 
excluded  clergymen  from  civil  office,  there  was  some  plausibility  in  exempting 
these  political  eunuchs  from  taxation  ;  but  that  is  happily  dissipated  by  our  Ke- 
formed  Constitution.  Clergymen  may  now  be  elected  to  any  office,  as  is  right ; 
now  let  them  pay  taxes  just  like  other  people." 

NOTE  (w.)  "Counterfeits  of  patriotism." It  is  generally  agreed  that  if  at  the 

time  (fall  of  Fort  Sumter)  when  the  two  sections  faced  each  other,  there  had  not 
been  already  engendered  such  bitter  personal  feelings  as  had  been  for  many  years 
sedulously  aroused  by  the  New  Orleans  Delta  or  Charleston  Mercury,  on  the  part 
of  the  South,  and  by  Horace  Greeley's  editorials  in  the  North  toward  the  South,  a 
vast  deal  of  the  acerbity  displayed  from  Norfolk  to  Galveston  would  not  have 
existed.  Whether  Horace  Greeley  was  reckless  or  designing  in  aiding  this  acer 
bity,  history  will  unfold.  Davis,  Benjamin  &  Co.  were  conservative  at  times — so 
was  Horace  G-reeley.  In  the  New  York  Tribune  of  May  25,  1860,  he  wrote  thus  : 

"To  my  mind,  it  was  the  imperative  duty  of  the  Convention  to  regard  the 
triumph  of  the  cause  first,  and  the  gratification  of  personal  feelings  or  aspira 
tions  a  long  way  afterward.  I  wished  first  of  all  to  succeed  ;  next,  to  strengthen  and 
establish  our  struggling  brethren  in  the  border  Slave  States.  Close  as  many  suppose  the 
contest  is  destined  to  be,  and  doubtful  as  they  may  deem  its  issue,  I  would  now 


30 

on  Manassas  plains  ;  for  its  treason  in  the  early  articles  justifying 

gladly  give  away  the  ten  sure  votes  of  Khode  Island  and  Connecticut  to  gain  the 
nine  votes  of  Missouri." 

This  was,  on  its  face,  manly  talk.  If  repeated  during  February,  1861,  it  would 
have  proved  valuable.  There  was  need  of  such  talk  at  this  last  date.  Instead  of 
which,  his  editorials  were  full  of  these  expressions  respecting  the  Peace  Congress— 
"The  Old  Gentlemen's  Conference" — "  The  Volunteer  Convention,  irreverently 
styled  the  One-horse  Congress"  (February  26,  1861).  It  was  of  great  importance 
to  establish  our  struggling  brethren  in  the  border  Slave  States— then.  But  Horace 
Greeley  had  been  found  in  times  of  such  need — during  the  Kansas-Nebraska- 
Lecompton  debate — feeding  the  angry  flames  of  the  South,  instead  of  quenching 
them.  He  took  every  pains  to  foster  the  jealousy  with  which  Southerners  were 
taught  by  their  designing  disunionists  'to  regard  matters  literary,  theological,  and 
political  at  the  North,  wherein  slavery  was  mentioned.  True,  the  Eepublican  party 
denounced  the  institution,  and  exposed  its  enormities,  but  only  to  illustrate  the 
inexpediency  of  converting  it  from  a  local  into  a  national  institution.  The  first 
Eepublican  Convention  was  presided  over  by  a  slaveholder.  Nevertheless,  in  every 
way  Horace  Greeley  abused  the  Southern  States,  people,  and  peculiarities  ;  while 
at  the  same  time  he  was  compelled  to  admit  the  right  of  the  South  to  govern  their 
local  institutions  in  its  own  way.  It  was  as  unmanly  so  to  do,  and  as  injurious  to 
the  argument,  as  it  would  be  for  a  debater  to  attack  the  objectionable  hat  or  the 
eccentric  coat,  or  the  affected  drawl,  or  the  taste  of  keeping  goats  in  a  bath-tub, 
possessed  by  his  opponent. 

From  a  Greeley  editorial  of  June  11,  1858,  is  extracted  the  following — a  very 
mild  sample,  too  : 

' '  If  the  statements  of  The  Richmond  Whig  are  to  be  taken  as  authority — and 
surely  at  this  point  at  least  that  journal  may  be  supposed  to  be  well  informed — the 
white  race  in  that  State  has  sunk  to  a  condition  of  pitiable  imbecility.  The  whites, 
according  to  The  Whig,  are  utterly  dependent  on  the  negroes.  Without,  at  least, 
one  negro,  no  white  man  is  capable  of  filling  any  position  of  usefulness  or  respec 
tability.  This  serves  to  account  for  the  immense  number  of  Virginia  loafers  with  which 
Washington  always  sicarms,  and  the  low  level  to  which,  in  point  both  of  intelligence  and  in 
dustry,  the  Ancient  Dominion  has  sunk." 

Such  an  article,  copied  into  every  Virginia  local  paper — and  readers  assured  that 
it  came  from  the  leading  Republican  gazette  at  the  North,  and  from  New  York 
City — would  singly  exasperate  the  people  of  the  "  Ancient  Dominion."  But  this 
mode  of  exasperation,  persistently  followed  down  to  the  very  fall  of  Sumter,  must 
have  been  powerful  in  effect.  Every  trivial  occasion  was  embraced  to  aid  the 
Southern  exasperation.  A  large  number  of  Southern  divines  and  laymen  are  at 
tending  the  anniversaries  of  May,  1858 — these  gentlemen  are  representative  men. 
At  a  purely  business  meeting,  a  Greeleyian  reporter  takes  down  everything  calcu 
lated  to  annoy  them  ;  and  the  proceedings  headed  in  this  sensation  style  : 


31 

the  right  of  Secession  ;  (#)  for  its  moral  briberies  with  editorial  in- 

Fac-simile  heading,  Tribune,  May  13,  1858  : 


THE  ANNIVERSARIES. 


THE  AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY. 


AN    EXCITING    DISCUSSION. 


The  Slaveholders  Triumphant. 

Whilst  the  Peace  Congress  was  in  session  and  many  patriots  in  the  regular  Con 
gress  "  strengthening  and  establishing  struggling  brethren  in  the  border  Slave 
States,"  Horace  Greeley  is  clinging  to  the  Chicago  Platform  !  He  writes  thus  on 
Washington's  birthday,  1861  : 

"  In  view  of  all  these  considerations,  we  beseech  our  friends  everywhere  to 
stand  firm,  to  adhere  to  the  Chicago  Platform,  and  to  hold  those  who  demand  of  us  a 
surrender  of  our  cherished  principles  as  our  deadliest  enemies.  IF  this  Govern 
ment  is  to  be  dissolved,  IF  anarchy  and  confusion  are  to  follow,  and  IF  the  Republi 
can  party,  which  has  achieved  so  signal  a  victory  for  Humanity  and  Freedom,  is  to 
be  consigned  to  oblivion,  let  it  not  be  said  of  us  that  we  were  afraid  to  place  ourselves 
upon  the  rock  of  truth,  or  that  we  confided  too  sparingly  to  the  patriotism  and  intelli 
gence  of  the  people." 

President  Lincoln  understood  the  crisis,  when  about  this  time  he  related  his 
characteristic  anecdote  of  his  being  like  the  man  who  fell  heir  to  an  immense  man 
sion,  certain  parts  of  which  were  secretly  mined  with  gunpowder,  for  which  search 
must  be  made  with  candle-light. 

Thirteen  days  later  than  the  last  editorial,  Mr.  Seward  showed  that  he  also  un 
derstood  the  crisis.    In  a  Horace  Greeley  editorial,  March  7,  1861,  is  the  following- 
intended,  perhaps,  for  sarcasm  ;   but  quoted,  now  nearly  a  year  afterward,  is  sar 
castic  ;  not,  however,  on  Mr.  Seward  ! 

"  The  citizens  of  Illinois  now  in  Washington  called  on  Mr.  Seward  after  the  in 
auguration,  and  in  response  to  their  congratulations,  he  said  :  '  Gentlemen — If  you 
want  to  save  this  Administration,  and  have  it  successful  and  profitable  to  the 
country,  I  implore  you  to  remember  that  the  battle  for  Freedom  has  been  fought 
and  won.  Henceforth  forget  that  Freedom  ever  was  in  danger,  and  exert  your 
best  influence  now  to  save  the  Union.  Let  it  not  be  said  that  the  Republican 
party  of  the  United  States  won  its  first,  last,  and  only  victory,  over  the  dissolu 
tion  of  the  Union. '  One  of  his  visitors  remarked  :  '  Governor,  I  want  the  in 
tegrity  of  the  Republican  party  maintained.'  Mr.  Seward  responded:  'Remem 
ber,  that  the  way  to  maintain  the  integrity  of  the  Republican  party  is  to  maintain 


32 

fluence  or  silence  ;  for  its  editorial  tampering  with  bench  and  jury; 

the  Union.  Remember  that  the  point  at  which  the  enemy  strikes  is  always  the 
point  which  you  should  defend.'  Mr.  Lovejoy  interposed  and  added  :  '  And 
remember  that  the  Union  is  worth  nothing  except  so  long  as  there  is  Freedom  in 

it.'     To  this  Mr.  Seward  replied  :  '  Freedom  is  always  in  the  Union.'  " 

i  > 

NOTE  (x).  No  one  now  doubts  that  for  many  years  certain  of  the  Southern  politi- 
ticians  meditated  a  crippling  of  Army  and  Navy — looking  toward  two  confedera 
cies.  Whether  Horace  Greeley  did  or  did  not  must  be  left  to  history.  The  writer 
now  presents  the  public  with  many  editorials  they  may  have  forgotten. 

The  following  is  from  an  H.  G.  editorial  on  reforms  in  Congress,  June  11, 1858  : 

"  The  Army. — Of  all  solecisms,  a  Standing  Army  in  a  Republic  of  the  XlXth 
Century  is  the  most  indefensible.     The  abuse  is  so  monstrous  that  it  is  difficult  to 
bring  arguments  against  it,  from  the  incredibility  of  supposing  it  seriously  defended 
by  any  save  those  who  profit  by  it.     From  the  coarse  knaveries  whereby  young 
simpletons  and  older  bacchanals  are  seduced  to  enlist,  through  the  smarter  rascali 
ties  of  the  sutler's  craft,  to  the  enormous  and  absurd  squanderings  of  the  trans 
portation  service,  all  is  ineffably  disgusting.     We  have  sent  regiment  after  regi 
ment  to  the  Pacific  coast  at  a  cost  of  not  less  than  $1,000  per  man  before  they  are 
in  position  for  actual  service,  when  a  more  effective  force  could  have  been  mustered 
right  there,  fully  equipped  and  eager  for  action,  at  a  cost  of  less  than  $100  per  man. 
Wretched  affair  as  the  Mexican  War  was,  it  did  teach  us  that  American  volunteers, 
decently  led,  are  a  full  match  for  any  regulars  that  can  be  got  up  on  this  Continent. 
When  men  enough  can  be  found  to  volunteer  for  such  a  war,  ready  to  fight  in  such 
a  cause  twelve  or  fifteen  hundred  miles  from  home,  and  do  actually  fight  well 
there,  under  such  Generals  as  Pierce  and  Pillow,  it  ought  to  be  accounted  high  trea 
son   even  to  suggest  the  maintenance  of  a  regular  army  thereafter.     Leave   West 
Point,   General  Scott,  two  Major-Generals,  four  Brigadiers  and  an  effective  Staff,  with  at 
most  two  thousand  crippled  or  invalid  veterans  to  take  care  of  fortresses,  and  encourage  the 
formation  of  efficient  volunteer  companies,  regiments  and  brigades  of  Militia  by 
liberal  bounties  to  the  best  organized  and  drilled,  and  the  deposit  of  a  good  musket  or 
rifle  in  every  dwelling  whose  master  will  give  security  for  its  safe-keeping  and  return  when 
required,  and  we  have  no  more  need  of  a  Standing  Army  than  of  an  order  of  nobili 
ty.     The  saving  by  the  utter  disbandment  and  disuse  of  such  an  Army,  regarded 
as  a  movable  force,  and  the  substitution  therefor  of  capable  and  prudent  Wardens 
of  the  frontiers,  with  the  rank  of  Colonels  and  power  to  call  out  a  limited  number 
of  volunteers  for  a  month's  service  whenever  required — said  month  to  be  extended 
to  three  at  the  discretion  of  the  General  commanding  on  that  whole  frontier- 
would  save  at  least  Five  Millions  per  annum  immediately,  and  ultimately  not  less 
than  Ten  Millions.     And  this,  though  it  may  be  ever  so  obstinately  resisted,  will 
yet  be  done. 

"  The  Navy. — To  sell  out  the  Navy  Yards  to  the  highest  bidder,  saving  only  the  best  one,  if 
any — to  burn  or  lay  up  under  cover  all  our  old  and  nearly  all  our  large  sailing  vessels — to 


stop  the  appointment  of  any  more  captains,  lieutenants,  or  midshipmen,  \vhile 
there  shall  be  already  officers  of  these  grades  respectively  'waiting  orders' — that 
is,  doing  nothing — and  to  transform  our  National  vessels  propelled  by  steam  into 
Mail  Packets,  running  on  the  more  or  the  less  important  routes,  according  to  their 
value  and  swiftness,  allowing  them  to  carry  passengers  and  freight  within  their 
capacity,  as  well  as  mails — these  are  the  outlines  of  a  system  of  naval  reform 
which  would  save  Five  Millions  per  annum  to  the  Treasury,  and  render  the  Navy 
far  more  useful  than  it  is.  We  may  enlarge  on  this  head  at  another  time. ' ' 

Whilst  every  loyal  journal  at  the  North  (Jan.,  1861)  was  preparing  the  public 
mind,  and  especially  the  commercial  world,  for  the  "impending  crisis,"  Horace 
Greeley  was  painting  the  benefits  (!)  of  secession  thus  (Tribune,  January  26,  1861)  : 

"  It  seems  impossible  for  the  Slaveholding  States  to  do,  or  refuse  to  do,  any 
thing  that  will  not  redound  to  the  advantage  of  the  Free  States. 

"  As  we  have  shown  already,  the  Secession  movement  is  bringing  business  and 
prosperity  to  the  North,  which  will  increase  daily  until  the  South  shall  be  of  no 
account  whatever,  except  as  a  cotton-field.  Its  agricultural  production  will  be  the 
same  as  now,  but  even  its  mechanic  industry,  in  its  present  limited  forms,  will  de 
sert  it,  and  its  commerce  will  cease  to  exist.  Those  important  branches  of  its  pros 
perity  will  be  wholly  lopped  off,  and  their  sap  and  vigor  transferred  to  stimulate 
Northern  growth. 

,  "Already  our  Northern  cities,  and  New  York  in  particular,  are  feeling  a  quick 
ening  of  their  trading  pulses  from  the  very  partial  interruption  of  business  at  the 
Southern  seaports.  And  this  is  but  the  beginning.  The  ports  of  Mobile,  and 
Savannah,  and  New  Orleans,  are  still  full  of  shipping,  bearing  away  the  products 
of  the  Southern  country  and  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  But  when  they  shall  have 
departed — that  will  be  the  end  of  commerce  at  those  ports.  There  cannot  be 
less  than  four  hundred  ships  now  loading  in  the  various  harbors  of  the  South. 

"  When  this  whole  business  shall  have  been  transferred  to  Northern  channels  by 
the  shutting  of  Southern  ports,  and  thrown  upon  Northern  cities,  it  is  impossible 
to  overestimate  the  amount  of  profit  that  will  be  reaped  by  our  commercial  and 
financial  circles.  The  present  banking  capital  of  this  city  will  be  wholly  inade 
quate  to  the  transaction  of  the  new  business  they  will  have  to  do.  Our  wharves 
and  warehouses  will  be  overloaded  with  Southern  products.  Our  docks  will  be 
choked  with  foreign  and  domestic  shipping.  Our  railroads  will,  with  their  present 
resources  and  accommodations,  struggle  in  vain  to  keep  up  with  their  fast-accruing 
burdens  of  transportation.  $ 

' '  Our  steamers  and  sailing  craft,  luggers  and  towboats,  our  mechanics  and  labor 
ing  men  in  anyway  connected,  directly  or  indirectly,  with  commercial  and  shipping- 
circles,  will  know  an  activity  of  employment  never  before  experienced.  Every 
other  branch  of  traffic  will  feel  a  corresponding  impulse,  in  a  greater  or  less 
degree. 

"Such  is  sure  to  be  the  commercial  effects  of  Secession  upon  this  city,  and  like 
results  will  be  experienced  in  every  other  great  commercial  emporium  of  the  Free 
States,  and  throughout  the  maritime  parts  of  the  country." 

3 


34 


The  writer  here  inserts  (without  comment)  the  following  H.  G.  editorials  : 

From  the  Tribune,  Dec.  17,  1860. 
"THE    RIGHT    OF    SECESSION. 

"  The  Albany  Evening  Journal  courteously  controverts  our  views  on  the  subject  of 
Secession.  Here  is  the  gist  of  its  argument  : 

"  '  "  Seven  or  eight  States  "  have  "pretty  unanimously  made  up  their  minds  "  to 
leave  the  Union.  Mr.  Buchanan,  in  reply,  says  that  "  ours  is  a  Government  of 
popular  opinion,"  and  hence,  if  States  rebel,  there  is  no  power  residing  either  with 
the  Executive  or  in  Congress,  to  resist  or  punish.  Why,  then,  is  not  this  the  end 
of  the  controversy  ?  Those  "seven  or  eight  States  "  are  going  out.  The  Govern 
ment  remonstrates,  but  acquiesces.  And  THE  TRIBUNE  regards  it  "  unwise  to  un 
dertake  to  resist  such  Secession  by  Federal  force." 

"  'If  an  individual,  or  "a  single  State,"  commits  treason,  the  same  act  in  two  or 
more  individuals  or  two  or  more  States  is  alike  treasonable.  And  how  is  treason 
against  the  Federal  Government  to  be  resisted,  except  by  "  Federal  force  "  ? 

' '  '  Precisely  the  same  question  was  involved  in  the  South  Carolina  Secession  of 
1833.  But  neither  President  Jackson,  nor  Congress,  nor  the  people  took  this  view 
of  it.  The  President  issued  a  Proclamation  declaring  Secession  treason.  Congress 
passed  a  Force  Law;  and  South  Carolina,  instead  of  "madly  shooting  from  its 
sphere,"  returned,  if  not  to  her  senses,  back  into  line.' 

' '  Does  the  Journal  mean  to  say  that  if  all  the  States  and  their  people  should  be 
come  tired  of  the  Union,  it  would  be  treason  on  their  part  to  seek  its  dissolution  ? 

' '  We  have  repeatedly  asked  those  who  dissent  from  our  view  of  this  matter  to  tell 
us  frankly  whether  they  do  or  do  not  assent  to  Mr.  Jefferson's  statement  in  the  De 
claration  of  Independence  that  governments  'derive  their  just  powers  from  the  consent 
of  the  governed ;  and  that  whenever  any  form  of  government  becomes  destructive  of 
these  ends,  it  is  the  right  of  the  people  to  alter  or  abolish  it,  and  to  institute  a  new  govern 
ment,'  &c.,  &c.  We  do  heartily  accept  this  doctrine,  believing  it  intrinsically 
sound,  beneficent,  and  one  that,  universally  accepted,  is  calculated  to  prevent  the 
shedding  of  seas  of  human  blood.  AND  IF  IT  JUSTIFED  THE  SECESSION 
FROM  THE  BRITISH  EMPIRE  OF  THREE  MILLIONS  OF  COLONISTS  IN  1776, 
WE  DO  NOT  SEE  WHY  IT  WOULD  NOT  JUSTIFY  THE  SECESSION  OF 
FIVE  MILLIONS  OF  SOUTHRONS  FROM  THE  FEDERAL  UNION  IN  1861. 
If  we  are  mistaken  on  this  point,  why  does  not  some  one  attempt  to  show  wherein 
and  why  ?  For  our  own  part,  while  we  deny  the  right  of  slaveholders  to  hold 
slave*  against  the  will  of  the  latter,  WE  CANNOT  SEE  HOW  TWENTY  MIL 
LIONS  OF  PEOPLE  CAN  RIGHTFULLY  HOLD  TEN,  OR  EVEN  FIVE,  IN  A 
DETESTED  UNION  WITH  THEM,  BY  MILITARY  FORCE. 

"  Of  course,  we  understand  that  the  principle  of  Jefferson,  like  any  other  broad 
generalization,  may  be  pushed  to  extreme  and  baleful  consequences.  We  can  see 
why  Governor's  Island  should  not  be  at  liberty  to  secede  from  the  State  and  Nation 
and  allow  herself  to  be  covered  with  French  and  British  batteries  commanding  and 
threatening  our  city.  There  is  hardly  a  great  principle  which  may  not  be  thus 
'run  into  the  ground.'  But  if  seven  or  eight  contiguous  States  shall  present 


themselves  authentically  at  Washington,  saying,  '  We  hate  the  Federal  Union ; 
we  have  withdrawn  from  it ;  we  give  you  the  choice  between  acquiescing  in  our 
secession  and  arranging  amicably  all  incidental  questions  on  the  one  hand,  and 
attempting  to  subdue  us  on  the  other  '--we  could  not  stand  up  for  coercion,  for 
subjugation,  for  we  do  not  think  it  would  be  just.  We  hold  the  right  of  Self- 
Government  sacred,  even  when  invoked  in  behalf  of  those  who  deny  it  to  others. 
So  much  for  the  question  of  Principle. 

' '  Now  as  to  the  matter  of  Policy  : 

"  South  Carolina  will  certainly  secede.  Several  other  Cotton  States  will  probably 
follow  her  example.  The  Border  States  are  evidently  reluctant  to  do  likewise. 
South  Carolina  has  grossly  insulted  them  by  her  dictatorial,  reckless  course.  What 
she  expects  and  desires  is  a  clash  of  arms  with  the  Federal  Government,  which  will 
at  once  commend  her  to  the  sympathy  and  co-operation  of  every  slave  State,  and  to 
the  sympathy  (at  least)  of  the  pro-slavery  minority  in  the  free  States.  It  is  not 
difficult  to  see  that  this  would  speedily  work  a  political  revolution,  which  would 
restore  to  slavery  all,  and  more  than  all,  it  has  lost  by  the  canvass  of  1860.  We 
want  to  obviate  this.  We  would  expose  the  seceders  to  odium  as  disunionists,  not 
commend  them  to  pity  as  the  gallant  though  mistaken  upholders  of  the  rights  of 
their  section  in  an  unequal  military  conflict. 

' '  We  fully  realize  that  the  dilemma  of  the  incoming  Administration  will  be  a 
critical  one.  It  must  endeavor  to  uphold  and  enforce  the  laws,  as  well  against  re 
bellious  slaveholders  as  fugitive  slaves.  The  new  President  must  fulfill  the  obli 
gations  assumed  in  his  inauguration  oath,  no  matter  how  shamefully  his  predecessor 
may  have  defied  them.  We  fear  that  Southern  madness  may  precipitate  a  bloody 
collision  that  all  must  deplore.  But  if  ever  l  seven  or  eight  States '  send  agents  to  Wash 
ington  to  say,  'We  want  to  get  out  of  the  Union,'  we  shall  feel  constrained  by  our  devotion 
to  Human  Liberty  to  say,  Let  them  go !  And  we  do  not  see  how  we  could  take  the 
other  side  without  coming  in  direct  conflict  with  those  Eights  of  Man  which  we  hold 
paramount  to  all  political  arrangements,  however  convenient  and  advantageous." 

From  the  Tribune,  24th  December,  1860. 

"Most  certainly  we  believe  that  governments  are  made  for  peoples,  not  peoples 
for  governments — that  the  latter  '  derive  their  just  power  from  the  consent  of  the 
governed  ;'  and  whenever  a  portion  of  this  Union,  large  enough  to  form  an  inde 
pendent,  self-subsisting  nation,  shall  see  fit  to  say,  authentically,  to  the  residue, 
'We  want  to  get  away  from  you,'  we  shall  say — and  we  trust  self-respect,  if  not 
regard  for  the  principle  of  self-government,  will  constrain  the  residue  of  the  Ameri 
can  people  to  say — 'Go  !'     We  never  yet  had  so  poor  an  opinion  of  ourselves,  or 
our  neighbors,  as  to  wish  to  hold  others  in  a  hated  connection  Avith  us.     But  the 
dissolution  of  a  government  cannot  be  effected  in  the  time  required  for  knocking 
down  a  house  of  cards.     Let  the  cotton  States,  or  any  six  or  more  States,  say,  une 
quivocally,   '  We  want  to  get  out  of  the  Union,'  and  propose  to  effect  their  end 
peaceably  and  inoffensively,  and  we  will  do  our  best  to  help  them  out — not  that  we 
want  them  to  go,  but  that  we  loathe  the  idea  of  compelling  them  to  stay.     All  we 
ask  is,  that  they  exercise  a  reasonable  patience,  so  as  to  give  time  for  effecting  their 
end  without  bloodshed.     They  must  know,  as  well  as  we  do,  that  no  President  can 


recognize  a  mere  State  ordinance  of  secession,  nor  neglect  to  enforce  the  laws  of 
the  United  States  throughout  their  whole  geographical  extent.  It  takes  two  to 
make  a  bargain,  whether  of  admission  or  secession  ;  but  with  reasonable  forbear 
ance  all  may  be  brought  about. ' ' 

The  same  views  (see  motto  on  title-page)  were  expressed  on  the  eve  of  the  In 
auguration  . 

The  following  two  editorials  appeared  on  the  same  date  :  one,  in  leaded  type, 
conveying  watchword  to  co-conspirators  in  Washington  ;  the  other,  to  the  men  at 
Charleston — the  telegraph  being  then  in  perfect  operation  : 

From  Tribune  of  January  8,  1861. 

"BEWARE  I 

"  Some  weeks  ago  we  warned  the  Kepublicans  of  the  Free  States  that  a  measure 
was  being  concocted  at  Washington,  that  would  yield  up  the  vital  doctrine  for  which 
they  struggled  in  the  recent  Presidential  contest,  and  we  urged  them  to  let  their 
opinions  upon  that  subject  be  known  to  their  Senators  and  Eepresentatives  without 
delay.  We  have  reason  to  know  that  that  appeal  was  not  made  in  vain.  We  now 
say  to  the  tried  and  true  friends  of  our  cause  throughout  the  country,  that  the  ad 
vocates  of  what  is  called  Concession  and  Compromise  are  again  at  work,  and  with 
more  vigor  than  before,  to  induce  the  Republicans  in  Congress  to  support  some 
policy  that  shall  humble  the  North  and  make  shipwreck  of  our  party  and  its  creed. 
We  renewedly  call  upon  them  to  promptly  make  their  opinions  and  wishes  upon 
this  question  known  at  Washington.  To  this  end,  let  them  speak  through  their 
local  journals,  and  by  letters  and  other  means  of  communication,  so  that  their 
Senators  and  Representatives  may  have  a  clear  knowledge  of  the  tone  of  public  sen 
timent  at  home.  Let  the  friends  of  Free  Labor  and  Free  Government  move  im 
mediately  !  The  crisis  impends.  There  is  no  time  for  delay." 

"AID    FOR    ANDERSON! 

"  About  the  time  that  this  journal  reaches  our  readers  this  morning,  the  gallant 
Anderson  and  his  devoted  band,  who  have  so  sturdily  upheld  the  flag  of  their  coun 
try  within  the  walls  of  Fort  Sumter,  will  find  that  in  the  hour  of  their  peril  their 
country  has  not  deserted  them.  With  the  gray  dawn  of  the  day,  wind  and  weather 
favoring,  the  brave  fellows  at  the  fort  will  see  steaming  toward  them  the  Star  of 
the  West,  under  command  of  Capt.  McGowan,  with  the  stars  and  stripes  at  her  peak, 
bearing  aid  and  succor,  men  and  munitions  to  the  beleaguered  fortress.  It  is  now 
very  generally  understood  that  the  hurried  and  SECRET  mission  on  which  the 
steamer  left  here  on  Saturday  evening  was,  to  transport  a  body  of  United  States  troops 
from  Governor's  Island  to  Fort  Sumter.  The  men  were  quietly  put  on  board  from 
a  steamtug  in  the  lower  bay,  under  cover  of  the  night,  and  are  supposed  to  have 
gone  down  under  command  of  Col.  Thomas,  Gen.  Scott's  executive  officer.  The 
Star  of  the  West  also  took  a  large  quantity  of  stores  and  fuel,  of  which  Major 
Anderson  is  said  to  stand  in  need." 


37 


for  malicious  mischief  generally,  and  as  approximating  to  the  com 
mon  scold  at  common  law.  (y) 

But  you,  my  dear  Hoxie,  in  a  serene  old  age,  will  become  less  a 
"Poor  Joe"  than  shall  your  false  friend  of  twenty  years'  standing. 
For  you,  as  well  as  others  causelessly  maligned  by  this  diseased 
self-consciousness,  will  become  one  of  the  class  who  possess  the 
honor  versified  by  Bulwer  Lytton  in  his  "New  Timon  :" 

"  Honor  to  him,  who,  self-complete  and  brave 
In  scorn,  can  carve  his  pathway  to  the  grave  ; 
And,  heeding  naught  of  what  men  think  or  say, 
Make  his  own  heart  his  world  upon  the  way." 

Most  faithfully,  my  dear  Hoxie, 

Your  obliged  friend, 

A.  OAKEY  HALL. 

NEW  YORK  CITY,  Dec.  13,  1861. (z) 


NOTE  (y).  Under  the  head  of  "Nuisance,"  Sir  William  Blackstone  thus  com 
ments  (4B1.  Com.,  168)  : 

' '  Eaves-droppers,  or  such  as  listen  under  walls  or  windows,  or  the  eaves  of  a 
house,  to  hearken  after  discourse  and  thereupon  to  frame  slanderous  and  mis 
chievous  tales,  are  a  common  nuisance  and  presentable  at  the  Court  Leet.  Lastly, 
a  common  scold  (communis  rixatrix — for  our  law  Latin  confines  it  to  the  feminine 
gender)  is  a  public  nuisance  to  her  neighborhood.  For  which  offense  she  may  be 
indicted,  and,  if  convicted,  shall  be  sentenced  to  be  placed  in  a  certain  engine  of  cor 
rection,  called  the  trebucket  castigatory,  or  cucking  stool,  which  in  the  Saxon  lan 
guage  is  said  to  signify  the  scolding  stool ;  though  now  it  is  frequently  corrupted 
into  ducking  stool,  because  the  residue  of  the  judgment  is,  that  when  she  is  placed 
therein  she  shall  be  plunged  in  the  water  for  her  punishment. ' ' 

NOTE  (z).  Lest  it  should  be  charged  that  the  few  extracts  from  Horace  Greeley's 
editorials,  herein  contained,  are  unfairly  selected  from  a  twenty  years'  range  of  his 
pen,  when  many  things  may  be  barred  by  a  statute  of  limitations  every  public 
man  may  claim  benefit  of,  it  is  proper  to  add,  that  with  the  exception  of  the  seces 
sion  articles,  and  one  or  two  later,  the  bulk  of  the  extracts  or  proofs  are  from  a 
HALF-year  file  of  his  paper  during  the  Lecompton  fight  (1858),  when  H.  G.  was  par 
ticularly  '  on  the  rampage' — and  iliey  are  set  up  from  the  Tribune  type  !  Did  the  writer 
possess  time  anctcontrol  space  enough,  he  could  accumulate  proof  that  would  build 
a  logical  pyramid. 

[While  these  sheets  are  going  through  the  press,  and  on  the  very  same  day  when 
Senator  Henry  S.  Lane  electrified  the  Senate  galleries  by  declaring  he  would  sustain 
the  war  by  taxing  the  last  dollar — sustain  it  until  every  individual  was  bankrupt, 


3S 


and  he  himself  laid  in  a  pauper's  grave  by  pauper  hands — Horace  Greeley  publishes 
his  Almanac,  placing  the  Kebel  Congress  side  by  side  with  the  Union  Congress  in 
lists  of  members ! !  ] 

Senator  Garrett  Davis,  of  Kentucky,  in  his  speech,  duly  reported  in  Horace 
Greeley's  paper,  January  26th,  1862,  thus  hit  a  nail  very  squarely  upon  its  head  : 

"These  fanatics,  these  political  and  social  demons,  come  here,  breathing  pesti 
lence  from  Pandemonium,  trying  to  destroy  this  Union,  so  as  to  secure  over  its 
broken  fragments  the  emancipation  of  slavery.  They  oppose  Mr.  Lincoln,  as  honest 
and  pure  a  man  as  ever  lived,  because  he  stands  by  the  Constitution,  and  is  opposed 
to  interfering  with  slavery.  The  utterances  they  have  dared  to  put  forth  in  this 
city  have  desecrated  the  Smithsonian  Institute.  If  the  secessionists  had  dared  to 
give  expression  to  the  same  utterances,  they  would  have  been  sent,  and  properly 
sent,  to  Fort  Lafayette  or  Fort  Warren.  What  will  you  do  with  these  monsters  ? 
I  will  tell  you  what  I  would  do  with  them,  and  with  that  horrible  monster  Greeley, 
as  they  come  sneaking  around  here,  like  hungry  wolves,  after  the  destruction  of 
slavery.  If  I  had  the  power,  I  would  take  them  and  the  worst  seceshers  and  hang 
them  in  pairs.  (Laughter.)  I  wish  to  God  I  could  inflict  that  punishment  upon 
them.  It  would  be  just.  They  are  the  disunionists.  They  are  the  madmen,  who 
are  willing  to  call  up  all  the  passion  of  the  infernal  regions,  and  all  the  horrors  of 
a  servile'war.  This  they  would  carry  out  over  the  disjected  fragments  of  a  broken 
Constitution  to  obtain  their  unholy  purposes." 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

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on  the  date  tafyhich  renewed. 

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